Rooting around Clay Street, that's what the pig was doing.
Walking over to The Basement for TheatreLAB's Roast and Toast, I came to a gray pig rooting around in the upturned dirt of a tiny front yard two blocks down the street.
Wait, a pig?
A guy was riding down the sidewalk on his bike, earbuds in, but that didn't stop me from tapping him on the shoulder to get his opinion on spotting a farm animal in J-Ward. He stopped, stared and looked at me incredulously. "It is a pig!"
Call us agog because we were.
From across the street, a woman called to ask if the pig was upsetting us. Please. It was easily the most unexpectedly charming thing I could have come upon strolling down the street and I told her so. She looked relieved.
Almost at the Basement, I fell into step with a woman who said hello and looked at my feet. "I like your toenail polish," she says of my silver polish, a leftover from a disco party I went to over a year ago but keep using. "It looks like you're really jammin'," she tells me.
Oh, honey, if you only knew.
At TheatreLAB, I found the usual theater suspects - during intermission a girl took selfies with her tongue stuck out Gene Simmons-style - along with breakfast items suited to a noon start to the party: mimosas, yogurt, fruit and granola and, most importantly, doughnuts. When I saw a young woman reach for yogurt, I let her know that doughnuts lurked just on the other side of the group of people next to us.
Putting her bowl back on the table, she looked at me incredulously. "Then why am I wasting my time with this?" she asked rhetorically. I'm here to help, kid.
Taking the stage, Deejay, Evan, Maggie and McLean proceeded to poke fun at everyone from theater critics to play choices to themselves. They played Pictionary with one theater's season, "Gay Family Feud" for another's and "Two Truths and a Lie" with yet a third.
No one was spared spoofing
Categories for Theater Jeopardy included "Actors drunk at other people's plays," "Name that Naked McLean Jessie play" and "Napping during Cat in the Hat Plays," a sweeping indictment of both CAT Theater and HATT Theater.
"Did anyone actually see that play?" our hosts joked. From the front row, a guy said, "I directed it." Ouch.
Such was the nature of all the barbs - sharply observed, honest whether politically correct or not and laugh-out-loud worthy - that eventually every theater type in this town had been skewered. It was easy to miss a crack still laughing from the last.
McLean's big announcement that she's off to DC to get her master's had her lamenting, "It's like I'm leaving just when we have money to finally pay ourselves!"
With visibly shaking hands trying to read from a piece of paper, creative director Deejay ("It's like I never spoke up here before") announced the new season, "Women at War," causing spontaneous applause because they'll all be women-directed performances. The Cellar series will all be one-woman shows.
From the back of the room, McLean had the afternoon's best line: "If all you guys just got disappointed hearing that, that's how it feels."
Right on, Sister Bogeywoman (look it up, kids).
Interspersed with announcements, we saw monologues from the upcoming plays, hearing from directors and actors.
Second best line: director Keri Womald, saying, "This company is the shit." I couldn't have said it better myself.
Walking home with the intent of checking on the neighborhood pig, I passed friends sitting outside enjoying beverages on this delightful afternoon. We spoke through the bars of their fence until they invited me in to chat about their experience at the new Quirk rooftop bar Friday night. Like me, they're hoping to make it a neighborhood stop during off hours when the mobs are elsewhere.
Expecting to impress them with my pig siting, I was thrown off when they said they'd seen someone with a pig on a leash in Abner Clay Park. He'd spotted it and called her over so he had a witness. Crazy.
Back at home, I dipped into today's Washington Post, out on my porch reading about a 70-year old who'd just this February had sex reassignment surgery after a lifetime of knowing he was a girl in a boy's body. Best of all, his wife of all those years was 100% behind him on it. It's gratifying to know that 70 is not to late to change your life and that love extends beyond a previously-defined set of genitals.
Taking advantage of the gorgeous day, I walked over to Cask Cafe late, late in the afternoon (early evening?) because Lucy's was doing a burger pop-up, grilling out behind the restaurant. So, yes, I was walking two miles to eat food from a nearby Jackson Ward restaurant.
Not the point.
Walking through campus, I complimented a student on a pair of high-waisted jean shorts that looked identical to a pair I had in 1979, but it was her friend in hip-hugger jeans who wanted to chat about how shallow young people today are.
"I listen to classic rock, like the stuff my parents listen to because I fell like all the current music is so shallow and meaningless. No one knows what came before them." She also thought that vintage fashion beat out today's mish-mash of trends encompassing the past half century, showing me the four pieces she'd just scored for $15 at a pop-up vintage shop. "Everything was better before we ruined it."
Out of the mouths of babes.
The natives (students, mostly male) were restless as I walked up Cary Street past houses with porches crowded with guys smoking, drinking, bullshitting and playing loud music in the late afternoon sunshine.
Cask was buzzing with people, windows up and energy high. Lots of familiar faces - the woman I always see there who once bought a Fitz & the Tantrums ticket from me, the shorn beer geek, a favorite chef not long off a brunch shift, the uber-Mom and practiced server, the bearded and bubbly front of the house manager, the town's best bagel-maker - and plenty of raves for the massive burgers.
Hmm, pork bacon or housemade beef bacon? There's a first world problem for you.
A woman complimented my skort and then noticed my top, ecstatic when she realized it was a Spoon t-shirt. "Ohmygod, I saw them at [insert obscure club I never heard of] and they were a-maze-ing!" she gushed.
"You like Spoon?" she asks nonsensically. Are there people who wear band shirts but haven't seen the band? Recognizing a teachable moment, I shared exactly why they appeal to me: his distinctive voice, decidedly clever lyrics, the unaltered guitars so rare these days.
She high-fives me not once but twice about our shared admiration for Spoon. "You're a-maze-ing!" If she only knew.
It wasn't easy getting a bartender's attention to order, but the subsequent cheddar-dripping burger satisfied me into submission about the wait. Lucy's couldn't have asked for a better grilling out day or me a finer perch than the counter at the rolled up garage door facing the old depot and its pastiche of street art.
"I've decided not to worry anymore about first world problems," I overheard a young woman tell her friends. You'll be a much happier person for it, I told her and she lit up. "Really? I thought so! But it works, right?"
Please, let my life experience work for you and save yourself the trouble.
A woman showed up with sprigs of lilacs, my favorite flower, and questions about how best to do Mama J's, a subject on which I am an expert. The chef sat down next to me, bringing gossip about the rebirth of a classic restaurant and disdain for overly fussy food when the subject turned to sculptural Cesar salads.
It was fairly late in the game when I finally saw tonight's menu and realized I had ice cream sandwich options. How had I missed this? Not for me chocolate chip between sugar cookies (makes my teeth ache thinking about it) but I certainly couldn't resist housemade vanilla between thick, chewy chocolate cookies, now could I?
There's a reason it's the classic, the standard-bearer of all ice cream sandwiches.
Even when I'd polished that off, I stayed on, chatting with friends about the new film "Elvis and Nixon," about customers who don't feel bound by waiting for a hostess to seat them and how, unbelievably, some people have never gone to the Byrd Theater. I can only suggest reasons to correct that, I can't make them sit in those seats.
By the time I said my good-nights, the sun had slid into setting mode my back as I wandered back up Cary, far quieter now than it had been four hours earlier. For the record, I did not make a third visit to check on the local swine, secure in the knowledge that he's apparently a Clay Street fixture.
At home, a message awaited from hours earlier. "Leaving Norfolk now. I come bearing fresh oysters. Meet me at my house?"
There's a reason I wear this toenail polish, friend. Word on Broad Street is that I'm really jammin' so I'm bound to miss a last minute invitation here and there. Thank you for asking, though.
A great burger can make you cocky like that.
Showing posts with label cask. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cask. Show all posts
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Friday, March 11, 2016
Hook and Ladder
Unintentionally, we had a front row seat to a situation.
Sitting at Cask Cafe with the garage doors rolled up to this gorgeous evening, a car sped by at a terrifying speed, especially considering it was Robinson Street. Moments later, a fire truck did the same, followed by four or five more fire trucks.
So many vehicles continued tearing down the street that the capacity crowd at Cask barely even registered the sirens or lights after the first.
Or maybe they were distracted by the noisy Saison pop-up happening inside.
Fortunately we'd managed to nab the last open table when we walked into a sea of humanity milling around the bar. A restaurant friend spotted me from across the room and gave a thumbs up to the pastrami taco, shouting her recommendation over the heads of the crowd.
Given how busy the servers were, it seemed wisest to just order most everything on tonight's pop-up menu and go from there.
Mildest in flavor profile was the achiote grilled shrimp taco with avocado crema and cilantro slaw. Most flavorful was chicken tinga, crunchy with onion and radish. Spiciest was Chorizo-potato in a corn tortilla. And, yes, most distinctive was pulled brisket pastrami with Swiss, pickled cabbage and mustard seed and Russian dressing on a rye tortilla.
A side of chunky guacamole had us adding a schmear to everything.
Our only issue was the thickness of the housemade tortillas, which supplied too much breadiness, proportionately speaking, to the fillings. That said, the rye tortilla was nothing short of brilliant in combination with the usual suspects inside.
When we left Cask, we could see that a police car blocked access to Idlewood, confirming where the fire must have been, but all looked calm now on the southern front, so we drove on to Richmond Triangle Players to see their offering for the Richmond Acts of Faith Festival.
"Lazarus Syndrome" dealt with Elliott, a now-middle aged man taking a cocktail of drugs twice a day to combat his HIV-positive status, his "cheerer-upper" actor boyfriend, Steven ("You'll always be younger than me. I hate that'), brother Neil, who swears he's happy no matter how it looks otherwise, and father Jack, there to remind his sons of their family history and Jewishness.
At its most basic, it was a play about grieving for the losses we all experience, except that it was also told in an often humorous way, such as when Jack tells son Neil, "You name my grandchild Katelynn? It's like a knife in my heart!"
Better he should have named her Rachel or Esther?
The action centered around a big Jewish meal that Jack makes and brings over after taking cooking classes when his wife died. The joke is that he hadn't resorted to that until he'd eaten every last bite of food she'd left in Tupperware containers in the freezer for him.
I have no doubt that my mother will do the same, continuing to feed my father from the grave long after she's gone.
Playing brother Neil, Andrew Boothby was the standout, my friend and I agreed, with his easy conversational tone (even when speaking through a full mouth of sandwich) and perfect timing. We'd liked him in "Gypsy," but we loved him in this.
He never seemed to be acting with a capital "A."
The play was a terrific choice for the AoF festival, dealing with how we as humans go on after those around us are gone, whether in the Holocaust, the World Trade Centers or simply through age, disease or tragedy.
We do it through faith, because we have no other choice but to affirm life, preferably with a little humor.
Discussing the play afterwards, my friend compared how people who experienced the disasters in the play handled life to the post-Civil War era when soldiers who'd made it through battle and disease had to return home and jump back into farming again in order to survive.
She thought there was something about digging in the dirt and looking forward to future crops that represented a kind of therapy they desperately needed.
Everybody hurts, REM famously said. The people whose home went up in flames tonight are undoubtedly experiencing that right now. I know from my own catastrophic loss many years ago that life goes on, assuming you embrace it.
Of course, being a cheerer-upper myself, I couldn't have done anything else.
Sitting at Cask Cafe with the garage doors rolled up to this gorgeous evening, a car sped by at a terrifying speed, especially considering it was Robinson Street. Moments later, a fire truck did the same, followed by four or five more fire trucks.
So many vehicles continued tearing down the street that the capacity crowd at Cask barely even registered the sirens or lights after the first.
Or maybe they were distracted by the noisy Saison pop-up happening inside.
Fortunately we'd managed to nab the last open table when we walked into a sea of humanity milling around the bar. A restaurant friend spotted me from across the room and gave a thumbs up to the pastrami taco, shouting her recommendation over the heads of the crowd.
Given how busy the servers were, it seemed wisest to just order most everything on tonight's pop-up menu and go from there.
Mildest in flavor profile was the achiote grilled shrimp taco with avocado crema and cilantro slaw. Most flavorful was chicken tinga, crunchy with onion and radish. Spiciest was Chorizo-potato in a corn tortilla. And, yes, most distinctive was pulled brisket pastrami with Swiss, pickled cabbage and mustard seed and Russian dressing on a rye tortilla.
A side of chunky guacamole had us adding a schmear to everything.
Our only issue was the thickness of the housemade tortillas, which supplied too much breadiness, proportionately speaking, to the fillings. That said, the rye tortilla was nothing short of brilliant in combination with the usual suspects inside.
When we left Cask, we could see that a police car blocked access to Idlewood, confirming where the fire must have been, but all looked calm now on the southern front, so we drove on to Richmond Triangle Players to see their offering for the Richmond Acts of Faith Festival.
"Lazarus Syndrome" dealt with Elliott, a now-middle aged man taking a cocktail of drugs twice a day to combat his HIV-positive status, his "cheerer-upper" actor boyfriend, Steven ("You'll always be younger than me. I hate that'), brother Neil, who swears he's happy no matter how it looks otherwise, and father Jack, there to remind his sons of their family history and Jewishness.
At its most basic, it was a play about grieving for the losses we all experience, except that it was also told in an often humorous way, such as when Jack tells son Neil, "You name my grandchild Katelynn? It's like a knife in my heart!"
Better he should have named her Rachel or Esther?
The action centered around a big Jewish meal that Jack makes and brings over after taking cooking classes when his wife died. The joke is that he hadn't resorted to that until he'd eaten every last bite of food she'd left in Tupperware containers in the freezer for him.
I have no doubt that my mother will do the same, continuing to feed my father from the grave long after she's gone.
Playing brother Neil, Andrew Boothby was the standout, my friend and I agreed, with his easy conversational tone (even when speaking through a full mouth of sandwich) and perfect timing. We'd liked him in "Gypsy," but we loved him in this.
He never seemed to be acting with a capital "A."
The play was a terrific choice for the AoF festival, dealing with how we as humans go on after those around us are gone, whether in the Holocaust, the World Trade Centers or simply through age, disease or tragedy.
We do it through faith, because we have no other choice but to affirm life, preferably with a little humor.
Discussing the play afterwards, my friend compared how people who experienced the disasters in the play handled life to the post-Civil War era when soldiers who'd made it through battle and disease had to return home and jump back into farming again in order to survive.
She thought there was something about digging in the dirt and looking forward to future crops that represented a kind of therapy they desperately needed.
Everybody hurts, REM famously said. The people whose home went up in flames tonight are undoubtedly experiencing that right now. I know from my own catastrophic loss many years ago that life goes on, assuming you embrace it.
Of course, being a cheerer-upper myself, I couldn't have done anything else.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
January in the Rearview Mirror
Could there be a bigger treat than waking up on January 31 to a predicted high of 66 degrees?
While I was already looking forward to brunch plans in Carytown, it never occurred to me we'd be able to eat on the sunny patio or that I'd be inclined to walk there. Double score. Also, totally weird to be wearing a skort and t-shirt while still climbing over massive snow piles on the north side of the streets.
Knowing that Dixie Donuts closes in two weeks, there was no way I was walking by it without dipping inside for a doughnut. I may live far closer to Sugar Shack, but I far prefer Dixie's doughnuts.
The guy in line in front of me was dithering about his choice because as a newcomer to Richmond, it was his first time in, but he finally decided, telling the owner that he'd be back every Sunday after church to try all the other varieties.
"We close after Valentine's Day," she told him and his face fell, as mine would've if I hadn't already known. Somehow, the owner remembered me from our ages-ago meeting at Cask Cafe as I ordered a my usual: a chocolate chocolate doughnut (but not, it should be noted, a chocolate chocolate chocolate doughnut because I'm not a jimmies fan).
Walking home, the streets were buzzing with everyone who'd been trapped inside last weekend, strolling, running, porch drinking, dog-walking, biking, eating outside and generally just hanging out in the sunshine. It was glorious.
My first order of business once I got home was opening all seven windows in my house, which means opening storm windows, too, but completely worth the double duty. Coming a week after the near-blizzard, I'd have done pretty much anything to access fresh, warm air.
I no sooner got the apartment opened up than I left for Sub Rosa to hear some '60s Turkish music.
Yeni Nostalji was playing a set and, as you might expect on a sunny, warm winter day, people were out and about in Church Hill withsome, like me, stopping by specifically because of Christina's dulcet tones and Vlad's beautiful guitar playing, but also others seeking the best breads in town.
The bakery was filling up quickly when I arrived to find a stool behind the wide open door. Unfortunately, one idiot closed it on his way out and after that, everyone followed suit, trapping the hot air from Evrim's wood-fired oven and putting a glow on everyone's face in minutes.
But who's going to complain when Yeni Nostalji are playing their exquisite take on Turkish pop? A foursome came in and stood right next to the musicians, riveted, even dancing a little in place. Turns out they were Turkish students, paying Christina the ultimate compliment by praising her Turkish accent before they left.
Most of us couldn't determine that, but just being in a place that sounded and smelled so good on this beautiful last day of January was more than enough.
Thanks, Mother Nature, for the payback. Double or nothing tomorrow?
While I was already looking forward to brunch plans in Carytown, it never occurred to me we'd be able to eat on the sunny patio or that I'd be inclined to walk there. Double score. Also, totally weird to be wearing a skort and t-shirt while still climbing over massive snow piles on the north side of the streets.
Knowing that Dixie Donuts closes in two weeks, there was no way I was walking by it without dipping inside for a doughnut. I may live far closer to Sugar Shack, but I far prefer Dixie's doughnuts.
The guy in line in front of me was dithering about his choice because as a newcomer to Richmond, it was his first time in, but he finally decided, telling the owner that he'd be back every Sunday after church to try all the other varieties.
"We close after Valentine's Day," she told him and his face fell, as mine would've if I hadn't already known. Somehow, the owner remembered me from our ages-ago meeting at Cask Cafe as I ordered a my usual: a chocolate chocolate doughnut (but not, it should be noted, a chocolate chocolate chocolate doughnut because I'm not a jimmies fan).
Walking home, the streets were buzzing with everyone who'd been trapped inside last weekend, strolling, running, porch drinking, dog-walking, biking, eating outside and generally just hanging out in the sunshine. It was glorious.
My first order of business once I got home was opening all seven windows in my house, which means opening storm windows, too, but completely worth the double duty. Coming a week after the near-blizzard, I'd have done pretty much anything to access fresh, warm air.
I no sooner got the apartment opened up than I left for Sub Rosa to hear some '60s Turkish music.
Yeni Nostalji was playing a set and, as you might expect on a sunny, warm winter day, people were out and about in Church Hill withsome, like me, stopping by specifically because of Christina's dulcet tones and Vlad's beautiful guitar playing, but also others seeking the best breads in town.
The bakery was filling up quickly when I arrived to find a stool behind the wide open door. Unfortunately, one idiot closed it on his way out and after that, everyone followed suit, trapping the hot air from Evrim's wood-fired oven and putting a glow on everyone's face in minutes.
But who's going to complain when Yeni Nostalji are playing their exquisite take on Turkish pop? A foursome came in and stood right next to the musicians, riveted, even dancing a little in place. Turns out they were Turkish students, paying Christina the ultimate compliment by praising her Turkish accent before they left.
Most of us couldn't determine that, but just being in a place that sounded and smelled so good on this beautiful last day of January was more than enough.
Thanks, Mother Nature, for the payback. Double or nothing tomorrow?
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Up the Waterzooi
Best way to celebrate Belgian independence day (as told by an Irish-American woman):
1. Follow the Belgian flag and a gnome (?) hovering on the roof to Cask for a pop-up by chef Xavier Meers of Brux'l Cafe.
With Broadbent Vino Verde warming up at an alarming rate in this heat wave, we dove into cheese croquettes, garlic scampi, waterzooi of chicken (a traditional Belgian stew), mussels Provencal and a superb veggie salad that included among other things, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon and olives. Basically, we ate everything on the pop-up menu.
When the chef put in an appearance, we agreed he resembled a Dutch masters painting: curly haired, red cheeked and sturdy of form. Frans Hals or Rembrandt would have painted him.
2. Proceed to Ardent Brewery for Secretly Y'all, Tell Me a Story with tonight's theme "I quit!"
Standing in the back challenged the ears (too far from the storytellers) and patience (too many talkers) but the handsome bartender was complimentary ("Love your hair") and during intermission, we scored seats up front.
Stories ranged from a guy who learned to quit violence after choking a guy into unconsciousness to quitting the church and heroin at the same time to trying to quit life on the Lee bridge after a party in Oregon Hill to an ESL teacher in Henrico who chucked it all to make soap to an ESL teacher in Thailand who inadvertently taught kindergartners to say "sandwich" to a job as building inspector that included finding men having sex in the showers to a Ziplock bag of human poop that required quitting a job to save face to a man who refused to beat up on inmates.
Let's just say there are many ways - and things - to quit. Still deciding what it is I need to let go. I have an idea.
Friends ranged from a gallerist needing an open door to a bartender who gave me crap about quoting her to a wine guru trying to read a book to a yoga teacher questioning my location.
3. Final stop? GWARbar for metal night, the DJ spinning such classic pre-metal gems as Iron Butterfly and April Wine. Tattoos, dreadlocks and piercings abounded, but the Espolon was flowing and the conversation amiable.
Here's to 84 years of independence, Belgium! May I have just as many.
1. Follow the Belgian flag and a gnome (?) hovering on the roof to Cask for a pop-up by chef Xavier Meers of Brux'l Cafe.
With Broadbent Vino Verde warming up at an alarming rate in this heat wave, we dove into cheese croquettes, garlic scampi, waterzooi of chicken (a traditional Belgian stew), mussels Provencal and a superb veggie salad that included among other things, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon and olives. Basically, we ate everything on the pop-up menu.
When the chef put in an appearance, we agreed he resembled a Dutch masters painting: curly haired, red cheeked and sturdy of form. Frans Hals or Rembrandt would have painted him.
2. Proceed to Ardent Brewery for Secretly Y'all, Tell Me a Story with tonight's theme "I quit!"
Standing in the back challenged the ears (too far from the storytellers) and patience (too many talkers) but the handsome bartender was complimentary ("Love your hair") and during intermission, we scored seats up front.
Stories ranged from a guy who learned to quit violence after choking a guy into unconsciousness to quitting the church and heroin at the same time to trying to quit life on the Lee bridge after a party in Oregon Hill to an ESL teacher in Henrico who chucked it all to make soap to an ESL teacher in Thailand who inadvertently taught kindergartners to say "sandwich" to a job as building inspector that included finding men having sex in the showers to a Ziplock bag of human poop that required quitting a job to save face to a man who refused to beat up on inmates.
Let's just say there are many ways - and things - to quit. Still deciding what it is I need to let go. I have an idea.
Friends ranged from a gallerist needing an open door to a bartender who gave me crap about quoting her to a wine guru trying to read a book to a yoga teacher questioning my location.
3. Final stop? GWARbar for metal night, the DJ spinning such classic pre-metal gems as Iron Butterfly and April Wine. Tattoos, dreadlocks and piercings abounded, but the Espolon was flowing and the conversation amiable.
Here's to 84 years of independence, Belgium! May I have just as many.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Rose Rumble
Every minute of the rest of your life has been scheduled for you - and it's a long series of arbitrary, solitary tasks.
That's the definition of hell, also known as what would psychologically destroy an ENFP, a personality group to which I belong, at least according to Myers Briggs. And it's pretty much spot on.
Friends joke about my "prehistoric Blackberry," also known as my date book, because they know it contains jottings about events and plans as soon as tomorrow and as far away as months from now. But make no mistake, there are plenty of blank spaces.
I like it that way.
Last minute offers come up, plans change and sometimes, just sometimes, I get an offer I don't want to refuse. Hence the built-in availability.
I know I'm not the most responsible adult you'll ever meet. And even if I didn't, it's been pointed out to me.
My strengths are a good attitude, a way with people and my pleasure in being a good audience. Some nights, I get complimented on my dancer-like attire, my confidence and my ability to corral human stock and that's enough.
Most intriguing comment overheard at Amuse: "I was wondering who that was touching my butt."
Best thing I put in my mouth at Acacia: fried sugar toads over an incredible charred corn relish.
Most unexpected words from a stranger sipping a beer at Cask: "You've got a way of making people pay attention to you."
Secco yielded a charming new couple who told me Glaswegian jokes and friended me before I even got home, a scientist in a pink shirt who asked if I'd be wearing heels when we went out (a subject we did not discuss) and a young woman who wants me to teach her how to sew on a button (so she can stop throwing button-less shirts away).
More than one person raved about my wrangling skills. You should have seen me marching them down the Boulevard and Cary Street like a champ. Did I mention I have five younger sisters whom I've been wrangling since I was a toddler?
Thanks to strangers and friends alike, the 2015 Rose crawl, my fifth, was a blast. Just don't expect me to repeat myself again anytime soon.
Unless you're talking about drinking Rose. Solitary, even, sometimes.
That's the definition of hell, also known as what would psychologically destroy an ENFP, a personality group to which I belong, at least according to Myers Briggs. And it's pretty much spot on.
Friends joke about my "prehistoric Blackberry," also known as my date book, because they know it contains jottings about events and plans as soon as tomorrow and as far away as months from now. But make no mistake, there are plenty of blank spaces.
I like it that way.
Last minute offers come up, plans change and sometimes, just sometimes, I get an offer I don't want to refuse. Hence the built-in availability.
I know I'm not the most responsible adult you'll ever meet. And even if I didn't, it's been pointed out to me.
My strengths are a good attitude, a way with people and my pleasure in being a good audience. Some nights, I get complimented on my dancer-like attire, my confidence and my ability to corral human stock and that's enough.
Most intriguing comment overheard at Amuse: "I was wondering who that was touching my butt."
Best thing I put in my mouth at Acacia: fried sugar toads over an incredible charred corn relish.
Most unexpected words from a stranger sipping a beer at Cask: "You've got a way of making people pay attention to you."
Secco yielded a charming new couple who told me Glaswegian jokes and friended me before I even got home, a scientist in a pink shirt who asked if I'd be wearing heels when we went out (a subject we did not discuss) and a young woman who wants me to teach her how to sew on a button (so she can stop throwing button-less shirts away).
More than one person raved about my wrangling skills. You should have seen me marching them down the Boulevard and Cary Street like a champ. Did I mention I have five younger sisters whom I've been wrangling since I was a toddler?
Thanks to strangers and friends alike, the 2015 Rose crawl, my fifth, was a blast. Just don't expect me to repeat myself again anytime soon.
Unless you're talking about drinking Rose. Solitary, even, sometimes.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Curry and Crumpets
You could say the food was as unexpected as the history lesson.
Tonight the beer-centric Cask was allowing Chef Mel from Curry Craft to turn their former garage space for the beer-inclined into Curry Cask, a one-night Indian experience. Call it what you want, it was a pop-up.
With a fellow curry fan in tow, we arrived after the bar had been filled but while tables still sat empty waiting for eager mouths. Oh, sure, the big table was already occupied with a bunch of guys deep in their beer discussion (peach ale versus Budweiser, no doubt), but they were mere window-dressing for the place.
Ignoring the blackboards touting their vast beer selection, we opted for a bottle of Hugl Gruner Veltliner to accompany our meal. The menu was simple with an appetizer and two entrees, and with the smell of cardamom scenting the air, we ordered them all.
Our server, a veteran I recognized from any number of past serving positions, warned us that the kitchen (including one guy whose t-shirt read, "I am your enemy") was rockin' it and food was likely to come out all at once, bam! style.
We might have gotten through one glass each before the plates began showing up, first a Bombay masala porker starring Sausagecraft's habanero pork sausage with tamarind-chili-cumin glaze and Bombay slaw, a stellar Indian take on a very Virginia standard (pig and slaw) that got our mouths ready for more.
Our next two plates followed almost immediately, their poppadom sitting aloft like windblown sails on a boat. One was garam masala-scented market vegetable curry over basmati rice and the other a traditional chicken tikka masala.
Their aromas were tantalizing and because Mel had made them, perfectly seasoned with nice, big chunks of vegetables in one and an abundance of chicken in the other. We had no problem trading plates and taking them down to licked-clean plates.
While we did, enjoying them immensely with the Gruner Veltliner, a nine-top that included four young children with sodas took up residence next to us. It made me wonder, what happened to to the good old days when babysitters watched kids while Mom and Dad went to adult places like beer joints without them? Would it be too much to start a movement for adults-only pop-ups?
Instead, we took the path of least resistance, getting the check and heading out to a movie at the Westhampton since that won't be possible much longer now that the building has been sold.
Besides its classic movie palace exterior, it's got that upstairs theater unlike any normal theater space. I never sit anywhere but the front row (for the leg room) which is about as close to a movie screen as anyone needs to be. The ledge also conveniently holds a box of Milk Duds.
Tonight's attraction was "The Imitation Game" about the British mathematician who more or less came up with the prototype for modern-day computers. Ordinarily, I'd have zero interest in a movie about computers, but the fact that it was based on a true story sold me.
And you can make fun of me all you want, but I had no idea who Benedict Cumberbatch was. Now that I've looked him up, I know that I must have seen him in "Atonement" and "12 Years a Slave," but apparently he didn't register at all.
If only I'd known he'd been dubbed "the thinking woman's crumpet," I might have paid attention to him sooner. Hey, I like to consider myself a thinking woman and I certainly like crumpets, if you know what I mean.
So instead, I focused on the story, more than a little fascinated that this group of mathematically-inclined nerds was able to break the Nazi's Enigma code during WW II, thereby ending the war two years earlier and saving millions of lives. To a history nerd, those are facts worth knowing.
What I found appalling about another part of the history lesson was not just his prosecution for being gay (forcing him into chemical castration to avoid prison) but that indecency with a man was still a crime as late as 1967 in Britain. Thankfully the epilogue tells us that he got a royal pardon for his "crimes" in 2013.
The man who gave us the devices we can't live without had to be "pardoned" for who he was attracted to? The man responsible for shortening the war and saving all those lives? That's a difficult history lesson to swallow.
But, curry and Milk Duds, those were pure pleasure going down.
Tonight the beer-centric Cask was allowing Chef Mel from Curry Craft to turn their former garage space for the beer-inclined into Curry Cask, a one-night Indian experience. Call it what you want, it was a pop-up.
With a fellow curry fan in tow, we arrived after the bar had been filled but while tables still sat empty waiting for eager mouths. Oh, sure, the big table was already occupied with a bunch of guys deep in their beer discussion (peach ale versus Budweiser, no doubt), but they were mere window-dressing for the place.
Ignoring the blackboards touting their vast beer selection, we opted for a bottle of Hugl Gruner Veltliner to accompany our meal. The menu was simple with an appetizer and two entrees, and with the smell of cardamom scenting the air, we ordered them all.
Our server, a veteran I recognized from any number of past serving positions, warned us that the kitchen (including one guy whose t-shirt read, "I am your enemy") was rockin' it and food was likely to come out all at once, bam! style.
We might have gotten through one glass each before the plates began showing up, first a Bombay masala porker starring Sausagecraft's habanero pork sausage with tamarind-chili-cumin glaze and Bombay slaw, a stellar Indian take on a very Virginia standard (pig and slaw) that got our mouths ready for more.
Our next two plates followed almost immediately, their poppadom sitting aloft like windblown sails on a boat. One was garam masala-scented market vegetable curry over basmati rice and the other a traditional chicken tikka masala.
Their aromas were tantalizing and because Mel had made them, perfectly seasoned with nice, big chunks of vegetables in one and an abundance of chicken in the other. We had no problem trading plates and taking them down to licked-clean plates.
While we did, enjoying them immensely with the Gruner Veltliner, a nine-top that included four young children with sodas took up residence next to us. It made me wonder, what happened to to the good old days when babysitters watched kids while Mom and Dad went to adult places like beer joints without them? Would it be too much to start a movement for adults-only pop-ups?
Instead, we took the path of least resistance, getting the check and heading out to a movie at the Westhampton since that won't be possible much longer now that the building has been sold.
Besides its classic movie palace exterior, it's got that upstairs theater unlike any normal theater space. I never sit anywhere but the front row (for the leg room) which is about as close to a movie screen as anyone needs to be. The ledge also conveniently holds a box of Milk Duds.
Tonight's attraction was "The Imitation Game" about the British mathematician who more or less came up with the prototype for modern-day computers. Ordinarily, I'd have zero interest in a movie about computers, but the fact that it was based on a true story sold me.
And you can make fun of me all you want, but I had no idea who Benedict Cumberbatch was. Now that I've looked him up, I know that I must have seen him in "Atonement" and "12 Years a Slave," but apparently he didn't register at all.
If only I'd known he'd been dubbed "the thinking woman's crumpet," I might have paid attention to him sooner. Hey, I like to consider myself a thinking woman and I certainly like crumpets, if you know what I mean.
So instead, I focused on the story, more than a little fascinated that this group of mathematically-inclined nerds was able to break the Nazi's Enigma code during WW II, thereby ending the war two years earlier and saving millions of lives. To a history nerd, those are facts worth knowing.
What I found appalling about another part of the history lesson was not just his prosecution for being gay (forcing him into chemical castration to avoid prison) but that indecency with a man was still a crime as late as 1967 in Britain. Thankfully the epilogue tells us that he got a royal pardon for his "crimes" in 2013.
The man who gave us the devices we can't live without had to be "pardoned" for who he was attracted to? The man responsible for shortening the war and saving all those lives? That's a difficult history lesson to swallow.
But, curry and Milk Duds, those were pure pleasure going down.
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