Use Your Nouns

Poetry about cleaning toilets was prelude to a marriage being parsed.

All I knew was that it had seemed like forever since I'd last been to a poetry reading, so walking into Chop Suey and seeing the metal folding chairs set up between the tables and shelves of books felt instantly familiar and comfortably reassuring.

We'd arrived early enough for me to pick up "Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011," a book I'd been coveting all summer, before snagging seats in my favorite row, which just happens to front the art book section.

This works out well because I can pull interesting titles and gawk ahead of the reading. Tonight's temptation was a book on Degas (how could I not be drawn to his New Orleans work and a scene of a cotton market with no less than 14 figures in it?) and another on photographer Walker Evans (especially images depicting the south in the '30s), which I couldn't resist sharing with the nerd who'd accompanied me.

Poet Ryan Kent was reading from his new book, "This is Why I am Insane" to a fairly full house of friends, family and random poetry reading-goers like us. He apologized more than once for the "cuss words," and while I'm no angel, I do get tired of "shit" being used as an all purpose noun to encompass anything everything.

Also, it may be me, but I never again need to hear about dick hairs on a toilet in a poem.

That said, his poetry read like songs and he wrote without pretense, using references to what he knew - older women, cars on lawns in Petersburg, drinking - almost always ending his poem at exactly the right place. For a change, a poet who made brevity work.

Some of his phrases were wonderfully evocative, from  "Watching her walk with all the right swing" to a reference to "A stalemate of cars in traffic on 95." Visuals sprung from his words.

He ended with the most recent poem he'd written, which he sarcastically called an upper. I've heard Sylvia Plath did something similar.

Leaving Chop Suey, we decided to walk to dinner, striking out first at the Stables at Belmont and second at Belmont Food Shop, so we decided to forsake Belmont entirely and make our way to Kuba, Kuba.

As you'd expect for any night of the week, Kuba, Kuba was close to capacity but we spotted two empty bar stools and promptly claimed them before anyone else could. Even though it's been eons since I'd been in, I knew without opening the menu what I was getting.

Not having to read gave me time to start eavesdropping on the two men next to us who were trying to decide if Guy #1 should jump ship on his marriage. Guy #2 wanted to know if after they'd gotten married there had been a honeymoon period where everything seemed idyllic and hopeful.

Negative.

Guy #2 pressed on, curious about why #1 was ready to give up. Many reasons were listed, but #1 summed it up by saying, "She's a great woman but she's not the woman for me."

So he'd made up his mind.

Guy #2 immediately shifts into next stage mode, suggesting what #1 needed tonight was a hook-up and Tinder was just the place to find one.

That gave #1 some bluster. "I could get four girls in ten minutes," he bragged. Down, boy. It's a woman's prerogative to swipe.

They toasted his success with using a device to mend his broken heart by raising their glasses: #1's of Coke and #2's a Sierra Nevada. Now that I think about it, it was a pretty lame toast, probably fitting for a self-proclaimed pretty lame marriage (or, perhaps more accurately, marriage attempt).

Then they celebrated the manly way: by ordering three entrees to share between the two of them. My guess is that #1 is going to move on just fine without the missus. Besides, doesn't everyone get a starter marriage?

Distraction arrived when our waitress showed up with our order and it got within 6" of the counter before she swooped them up again and deposited them in front of the two guys on the other side of us.

"That was just a tease, a look-see," she joked to us as they ate the food.

Our own arrived shortly thereafter and I was pleased to taste that no matter how many years go by in between visits, I can always count on the shrimp and mussels in Tasso ham and garlic broth for plump seafood, tons of ham and killer broth for endless sopping.

It's a dish guaranteed to make me sweat garlic tomorrow...in a good way.

When our server brought the check, she did so with a look of contrition on her face. Seems she'd charged the duo next to us for our meal and now she felt obligated to charge us for theirs. Since theirs was cheaper and ours had been delicious, we couldn't complain.

But who's complaining? Poetry, dinner and music on my breezy balcony is enough to make  anyone wax poetic.

The Bar as Community Table

There are advantages to being bar sitters.

It was after 7:30 when a couple of friends and I decided to walk over to Kuba, Kuba for dinner.

We're no fools, so we were fully aware that going to Kuba, Kuba on a Saturday night was foolhardy (add in Chelsea Handler and you could call it downright stupid).

But, risk-takers that we are, we put foot to path.

Kuba, Kuba was mobbed; people were waiting outside and in. As we stood there assessing, we noticed a couple of bar stools being vacated.

We paused long enough to see if any of the waiting crowd wanted the seats, but everyone was holding out for a table.

With that barrier out of the way, two of us happily planted ourselves.

The guy sitting next to me, seeing my farmer friend standing between us (this time it was a man sandwich), offered us his seat since he was only waiting for take-out.

We accepted his offer, resulting in our little group being seated within five minutes of walking in the door. Fate!

All three of us had had long and busy days, so we were starving.

I got the mussels in Tasso ham broth, she got the paella and he got the salmon.

I thoroughly enjoyed my mussels and ham and soaked up as much of that cilantro-laced broth as I had room for, then passed the rest of it to the farmer for his dipping pleasure.

My friend ate the seafood out of her paella and as much of the flavorful rice as she could hold and then passed the rest of her bowl to the farmer.

The farmer finished his salmon with its accompanying salad and fruit medley (praising the watermelon for its sweetness), slathered butter over his own Cuban toast and then used my friend's leftover bread to sop up my broth and finally finished off the rest of her rice.

His Clean Plate Star was awarded, although he probably deserved three.

Clearly men and women define starving differently, although the man had worked the land for 13 hours today, so his activity level trumped ours in spades.

We teased him because we could see him rejuvenate as he ate.

We also teased him because the two of us know what topics to bring up to make him blush red in the face, right down into his shirt collar.

There may have been some intentional baiting just for the pleasure of watching his reaction.

As we were finishing our food, we noticed some of the people who had been waiting when we arrived finally being seated.

On the one hand, we felt bad for them because they must have been famished by then.

On the other hand, we'd offered the bar seats to them first and they'd declined.

We settled for admiring their ability to delay gratification, something we hadn't been as keen on doing.

Our willingness to barsit had not only fed us fast, but we now had time to leisurely sip our wine and chat up the late coming arrivals, several of whom had also been at Veggie Fest today.

Being at the bar felt like a community table where everyone was welcome, the staff participated and all conversation became communal.

I totally respect those who choose to wait for a table, but I'll never understand it.

Barsitting: all the fun and none of the wait.

Besides, where else can you get a compliment about the view from behind?

See Me, Feel Me, Feed Me

My first concert was the Who (I know, right?), which in no way explains why I went to see The Who's Tommy at Theatre VCU today. Because I had never seen the movie, I had absolutely no idea what the storyline was, although I fully expected to recognize and enjoy the music, which I did. My girlfriend was no better informed than I was, so we settled in to enjoy an afternoon of theater from the front row. I love watching spit and sweat fly.

Turns out the reasons for Tommy's deaf, dumb and blind kid status was being witness to a murder followed by abuse, both sexual and physical; it was really quite disturbing. The production, however, was terrific, with one of the best parts being having the band onstage performing the Who's music throughout.

Ryan Lake was stellar on guitar doing his best Pete Townsend and one of my favorite keyboard players, Gabe Churray of Ilad (one of my favorite local bands) shone. VCU has done a great job with this show and it's definitely worth spending an hour and 45 minutes at this Tony-award winning musical before it closes.

Afterwards we strolled down to Kuba Kuba ostensibly for a glass of wine, but ultimately for a feast. It was nothing like busy; Manny greeted us and immediately made himself director of our evening. Since it was still technically late afternoon and sunny we began with glasses of Vino Verde and a bowl of olives. Within minutes, grilled shrimp appeared at the table. We were busy dissecting the play and peeling the tails off our shrimp before we knew it.

Moving on to talk of the nefarious motives for friendship, we were the recipients of smoked salmon bruschetta with cream and capers. My friend is gluten-intolerant, so she could only enjoy the salmon, but I had no problem with the oil-toasted bread underneath with melt-in-your-mouth salmon on top.

And probably because Manny knows I can't get past his mussels with Tasso ham even after all these years, a small bowl of it appeared in front of each of us. By now our topic was working vacations and U.S. vs. Europe, not that either would be a hardship when it comes to learning a new skill. Manny opined that vacations should involve no work.

Cod cakes with a spicy cream sauce arrived next, but their cornmeal crust prevented my friend from partaking, so once again, it was up to me to follow through, which I happily did. Manny came over and sat with us for a bit to discuss leisure activities, specifically music at Balliceaux and the pleasures of cocktails versus straight spirits on the rocks. Note the plural; his complaint was with places that provide only one slow-melting cube. To each his own, I say.

He'd also graciously delivered a bottle of Sass Pinot Noir, announcing it as his current favorite small production winery. Girlfriend and I were impressed first with the delicious aroma and then with its balanced fruit followed by an earthy finish. It was meant to accompany the lamb chop lollipops that suddenly appeared in front of us. What a beautiful combination these two were! I'm not in the least embarrassed to say that we sucked the bones clean.

To assuage any guilt about our protein overload, our last course was large salads with a side of cornbread. At this point, we were comparing past relationships and trying to determine what could be gleaned from them. As two unintentional singles who both want to be attached again, we are seriously trying to suss out relationship success by examining the past. Of course, we're both smart enough to know that it will happen when it happens. Still, we can't seem to stop talking about the possibilities.

Kuba Kuba was definitely starting to fill up by this time but so were we, so we gave up our table, bade Manny a grateful good-bye and decided to walk over to the Black Sheep for our last course of wine and dessert. Naturally I got the chocolate creme brulee, (as if I order any other dessert there) but my friend has become a convert, too and may have even finished hers first, no shabby accomplishment when eating dessert with a pro like me.

Walking back to our cars at VCU in the cool night air, we marveled at how our theater date had turned into a multi-course extravaganza which had given us unexpected hours to solve the intricacies of friendship and relationships.

Or perhaps we were just so full that we had a false sense of contentment, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's always tomorrow for figuring out how to handle friends and find new loves.

We're convinced that we're only going to get better at this. I wonder, does that make us optimistic or just naive?

Dining with DJs at Kuba Kuba

Maybe it was the nice weather, but when I got to Kuba Kuba at 5:30 there was already a 25-minute wait.

 Luckily, the two people I was meeting, DJ types form Northern Virginia, were already waiting inside and, even better, there were three bar stools available.

Within 10 minutes, there were six or seven people waiting for tables; half an hour later there were more like a dozen.

People were circling like vultures to score a table or bar stools.

At one point, a threesome waiting up front spotted a recently vacated table still littered with glassware and dishes and swooped in and sat down.

The servers who saw this were dumbfounded.

"They couldn't even wait till we cleared the table?" one asked. Obviously not.

With the exception of breaking bad once, I have always gotten the same thing at Kuba Kuba since it opened, so I don't really need a menu.

Given the crowds breathing down our backs, it was probably good that we ordered right away, too.

As always my camarones y mejillones were perfect, as much because of the Tasso ham broth as those mussels (I opt out of the shrimp; I think the dish is better served with all mussels).

One of the two guys commented that he didn't eat mussels or clams which seems like such a shame, but I also know a guy who loves mussels but won't touch the broth, not sopping it with bread or enjoying it with a soup spoon. I told him he didn't deserve to eat mussels at all then.

This guy tonight did say that he'd rather crack crabs and eat them than have a crab cake, though, so he can't be all bad.

Naturally, with two music types there was plenty of that kind of talk, the two of them having been doing/listening to the 80s show on WRIR this afternoon.

Nothing like Songs from the Big Hair to remind you of your youth or to demonstrate where so much of today's sounds came from.

Let's just say Oingo Boingo came up in conversation.

It's saying a lot when you can order the exact same thing from a restaurant for years and never be disappointed in it; somebody's doing something consistently right.

The only wild card is how good the company is and these two music geeks were fun, if very male.

It was a good beginning to my Saturday night.

Pig Three Ways at Kuba Kuba

In all the many years I've been going to Kuba Kuba, I have gotten the exact same dish every single time (the mussels in Tasso ham and cilantro broth).

It's not just that I've been called a creature of habit, but it's such a wonderful combination of flavors that I was sure I'd regret not ordering it, so I just always did.

On one occasion when I ate there alone and didn't mention it to my then-boyfriend, George, I was found out.

The next day we were out taking a walk together in the hot sun and he started sniffing me.

"You went to Kuba Kuba last night, didn't you? I can smell it in your sweat." Such is the distinctive flavor of that dish.

Why do I tell you this?

Because at lunch today at Kuba Kuba I ignored the mussels and had the Kubanaso sandwich, consisting of Roasted Pork, Smithfield Ham, Chorizo, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard on hot pressed Kuban bread.

I know, I know, not very mussels-like, but huge, filling and with enough varieties of pig to satisfy a much bigger person than me.

So good, in fact, that I didn't give those mussels a second thought.

Naturally, I chose the bar stool nearest the kitchen to watch the action and was rewarded with conversational cooks.

The three of us were at a loss as to why it wasn't busier.

I was told that Fridays are always busy, rain guarantees a busier than usual lunch and yet there were at least six empty tables and four bar stools free when I arrived at 12:30, normally prime time.

It worked out well for me because I got plenty of talk from these guys, while watching them effortlessly turn out food.

As it turned out, I also had a direct connection when one of them insisted on taking my order, completely bypassing my server.

When he was plating my sandwich, though, two of the sections of it collapsed on the way to the plate.

He looked sheepish about it, so I reassured him that I was the last person to care about something so inconsequential. He handed it over with an enormous smile on his face.

I'm guessing he enjoyed the company, too, because as I was leaving, he said, "Have a good day, Beautiful."

That was my dessert.

Restaurants Not the Usual Suspects

Sunday's Washington Post Travel section had not one, but two articles about eating in RVA.

While I'm always happy to see word of our fair city in the larger press, I'm beginning to wonder about the sources for their destinations.

The first, "In Richmond, fine dining is in the details" was written by Post food critic Tom Sietsema, a man whose writing I read often and always enjoy, and chronicled his eating journey through our little town. Go ahead, I bet you can guess at least three, if not four, of the places where he chowed down.

Duh. Millie's, Can Can, Acacia and Mezzanine (because of its relative newness and Style's Restaurant of the Year award apparently) made the cut.

His only other stop was Buzz and Ned's Real Barbecue where he was underwhelmed. He also found Millie's lacking, despite having had a good lunch there several years ago. The others he enjoyed.

The second article, "For food shops, it's a capital city" was mainly about Belmont Butchery, but also gave a nod to 821, Comfort, Sally Belle's, Kuba Kuba, Yellow Umbrella Seafood and the brand new Spoonfed (formerly Stonewall Market).

The writer raved about Belmont Butchery with good reason, although Tanya Cauthen is quoted as saying that when she needs additonal counter help, she calls on local chefs from Balliceaux and Pomegranate. I question how a place as new as Balliceaux got lumped in with the defunct Pomegranate.

My question is this: can a piece about eating in RVA be written without mention of Can Can, Acacia, Millie's, Comfort, or Kuba Kuba? And, let's be real here, even 821 and Sally Belle's are semi-regulars when the topic is our restaurant scene. I'm not saying these aren't good places to eat, but who doesn't know that by now?

Clearly even the out-of-towners are aware of these places, so why can't we see an article about eating through Richmond mention some of the less obvious eateries we have to offer?

Yellow Umbrella was an unexpected surprise to see given a nod, as was the barely opened Spoonfed, but it was an article about markets after all. But a truly good story about what's worth checking out during a visit to RVA should inform the reader about the places not mentioned over and over in the travel press.

Or, at the very least, whomever is supplying the suggestions to these out-of-town writers should give them the scoop on the places the locals know are our best -kept secrets.

If anyone should need a good source in the future, I'm happy to provide a list of less obvious places worth a bite or sip, as, I'm sure, would any regular diner in Richmond.

Or are we trying to keep these places to ourselves?

Think Small...No, Smaller

This is America, so bigger is always better, right?

Not so, of course, as was beautifully demonstrated at tonight's Think Small Exhibition preview party at Art 6 and Artspace.

It was the 5th biennial international miniature invitational and while there were plenty of artists represented from RVA, there were also artists shown from Tuscon, Chicago, Budapest and places in between.

The works accepted could be no more than 3 inches in any direction, but that could mean 3 inches of sculpture, photography, painting and just about any other interpretation of form.

Tonight's preview party included a buffet prepared by some local favorites, including Mekong, Bistro 27 and Kuba, Kuba, among others.

Your ticket purchase also got you drinks at both galleries and there was a cushy motor coach (okay, bus) to transport participants from Broad Street to Manchester.

The event was a fundraiser for both galleries and undoubtedly desperately needed at a time when arts funding is almost non-existent.

But the primary benefit to attendees was the opportunity to purchase the art before the First Friday masses arrive tomorrow and purchase they did.

Many pieces earned a red sticker tonight, signifying that they'd been sold.

And while the art was small, the prices ranged from $35 to $400 to "Inquire," which usually means if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

But there was a great deal of interesting and affordable art to choose from out of the nearly 400 pieces on display.

The exhibit is a perfect opportunity for art lovers to acquire a piece (or two) worth enjoying every day.

And, beware,  if you don't go for it now, it'll be two more years before you have the opportunity to Think Small again.

Unless, of course, you'er thinking about something other than art.

Lunch Talk

When I was among the employed, I generally brought and ate lunch at my desk every day.

Now and then I'd meet someone for lunch, usually to try a new place (Aurora, Papa Ningo, etc.).

Now that I am among the unemployed, I usually eat at home, but I broke bad twice this week for lunch out with friends.

Thursday was lunch at Kuba Kuba with a girlfriend I hadn't seen since before "the great sickness" (my pneumonia).

She knew about the layoff, but wanted the details of the other stuff going on in my life.

It was cathartic to open up and tell her all the crappy stuff that's been happening in my life lately...especially since I usually lead a charmed life.

My oh-so tasty lunch was mussels in a garlic/tasso ham broth with plenty of Cuban toast to soak up that brothy goodness.

One of the waiters, also a musician in Fight the Big Bull, gave us a flier about Friday night's performance in at the Robinson in Church Hill.

Today's lunch was with a guy friend at the new Gibson's at the National.

We used to work together, so he filled me in on the latest office gossip.

What I wanted to hear about was his new relationship, since it had come about since I'd last seen him.

What he wanted to know about was whether everything was okay with me and since it's not, I just alluded to things being a bit overwhelming at the moment.

Like my other friends, he was surprised that I would acknowledge any problems since I always wear my happy face.

That's been tough lately, though, so I didn't really open up.

Lunch was a steak salad with fried onions and little potatoes, which was too large but mostly quite good, although the blue cheese dressing was mediocre.

I should get out more, because I was actually surprised that both places were mobbed during lunch.

It worked out fine both days, though, because we could discuss life without anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to us.

And right now the last thing I need is anyone paying attention to me.