Category: United States

2012 Central Florida Scottish Highland Games

Linda and I volunteered to help out at the 2012 Central Florida Scottish Highland Games. This was my second year, Linda’s first. Last year I staffed the will call table and scanned pre-printed online tickets. This year we worked the ticket booth at the lower gate, both selling tickets and scanning those who had purchased online.

It was a brisk morning, only 45 degrees when we started, but the kilted participants didn’t seem to mind. After a while Emilio joined us, but there wasn’t really enough for two people to do, let alone three. Traffic arrived in waves, with most participants on site by 10 am; then things slowed down until we went off shift at noon.

Linda and I strolled around the grounds of the festival, which is mostly about clan tents, bag-pipe marching, and a live performance stage. There’s a tent that sells beer, and the clan tents usually have whiskey, so sobriety is not a feature, although at noon everyone still seemed sober.

The games mostly consist of throwing heavy objects. Some, such as hurling, seem particularly dangerous, since there’s nothing preventing an errant hurl into the crowd. We gave it a wide berth, and went to find some lunch. There were a broad selection of traditional Scottish foods, such as haggis, gyros and tacos. We settled on chicken-on-a-stick, which was good last year, but a bit undercooked this year, perhaps due to the cold.

Then we headed home to warm up!

Thanksgiving in Los Angeles

For Thanksgiving Linda and I flew to Los Angeles from Orlando, and Dani flew in from Chicago. Linda and I were lucky, and my medalion status (from credit card miles, I guess) got us upgraded to first class.

Once again we stayed at L’Ermitage in Beverly Hills, one of the homiest hotels I know. Their “linger longer” deal that gets you a free day makes it quite attractive.

We took advantage of our time in LA to visit quite a few restaurants, some new, some old.

Of course we had to start at El Cholo, where we had lunch with Linda’s mom. It’s just a few blocks from her house. El Cholo doesn’t really serve food that’s like any other Mexican or Tex Mex cuisine, but they’ve been doing the same thing since 1927, and we’ve been going for almost 50 years.

For dinner we tried the two Michelin star restaurant Providence. We liked the quiet atmosphere, and the service was terrific, but there didn’t seem to be enough home runs to justify the stars. We were tired (still on East coast time) so we stuck with the shorter 5-course tasting menu. The matching wines were just okay.

As with last year, we had the Thanksgiving buffet at L’Ermitage. It’s nice to just go downstairs and graze for lunch, in preparation for the real Thanksgiving meal in the evening.  Perhaps we were earlier this year, but it didn’t seem as well-attended, and some items we liked had been eliminated, but it was tasty.

Thanksgiving dinner was a Saddle Peak Lodge, a restaurant Linda and I discovered over 25 years ago, when it first opened. The rustic building, tucked into the canyons above Malibu, used to be a hunting lodge, speakeasy, and a bordello (not all at once). There were eight of us for dinner, including Linda’s mom, cousins Adele and Vikki, Vikki’s son Matt, and his wife Lauren. This was a great choice for Thanksgiving. The relatively small table made it easy to converse, and the food was delicious; half the table had the elk, which was probably the best entree I’ve had there. Service was good, especially considering how busy the place was. The wine pairing was stingy and very overpriced, though.

No visit to LA is complete without Smoke House garlic bread, the best in the world. Who cares what the rest of the food is like! There were almost no other customers at lunch; probably they were all at the mall on Black Friday.

For Friday dinner we tried a place recommended by my sales manager, Tommy. Vibrato is a jazz club high up Beverly Glen canyon, designed by herb Alpert. The acoustics were amazing, as were the live jazz piano and bass. The tables are arranged in a small amphitheater, and the room is really magical. The biggest surprise was that the food was great, too. We all loved the place!

Saturday Linda and Dani and I drove to Santa Monica and had sushi overlooking Ocean Avenue and the Pacific. We’d been to Sushi Roku in Las Vegas and really liked it, but this one wasn’t as good, and very expensive.

Saturday dinner was at Patina, another Michelin starred restaurant, this one in the new Disney Concert Hall downtown. We had the tasting menu with matching wine pairings, and all of us thought the food was excellent–in fact better than I was expecting. The service, however, was extremely incompetent. I had to remind them to pour almost every wine flight, and request every refill of water. The wine pairing was the highest quality I’ve had though, and a great bargain considering the number of wines, top producers and generous pours.

In retrospect, we agreed that of the four dinner places, two with Michelin stars, the ones we will return to are the ones without the stars!

One of Dani’s projects is to have her picture taken with Flat Doctor (think Flat Stanley, but for premed students) in as many spots as possible before the new year. Here she is on a particularly clear day in LA, as viewed from the rooftop of our hotel.

Sunday we got to the airport early and avoided the anticipated travel hassles, and were back in Orlando by 6:30pm. No first class upgrade this time, though. It was a quick trip to LA, but we squeezed in a lot.

 

New York to Istanbul

With a lull in Linda’s projects for Disney, she was able to get away, so for her birthday we booked a cruise in the Mediterranean. When Delta changed their flight schedule, our connection through JFK became dangerously short, so we decided to fly into New York a day a day before our international flight and celebrate her birthday a couple of days early, with dinner at Daniel and a night at the Hotel Athenee. Booking through Amex got us some nice benefits, including an upgrade to one of only two balcony rooms. Although it was rainy (with an impressive thunderstorm in the middle of the night) we were lucky during our walks around the city, and never needed an umbrella.

Dinner was nice, if not quite at the level of Eleven Madison Park or Jean Georges. The dining room is beautiful, and there were an astonishing number of wait staff. The service was extremely professional, but neither stiff nor friendly, just sort of a frenetic attempt to make everything perfect. It was, at times, a bit exhausting to watch. That’s very different from Eleven Madison Park, where the perfection feels effortless.

We had the six course tasting menu with matching wine pairing. There were two choices for each course, and I let Linda pick first, then took all the alternatives. As it turned out, I think I got the better choices. Of the wines, a 2009 Copain Pinot Noir from Alexander Valley really impressed us with its earthy/fruity complexity.

The next day we ate at Linda’s favorite lunch restaurant, Alain Ducasse’s Benoit, where we had her two favorite courses, the Charcuterie and the Roasted Chicken. Both are really, really French, and the pommes frites that accompany the chicken are the best anywhere.

On our walk back to the hotel we passed the Apple Store, where a tribute to Steve Jobs had been set up by fans. It happened to be iPhone 4s launch day, and there were hundreds of people in line outside.

Our 5:15pm flight to Istanbul was delayed when a bird was sucked into one of the engines on arrival at JFK, and eventually Delta ended up replacing the plane, recatering it, and we finally took off close to three hours late. Fortunately we had nothing to do on arrival. We were both able to get four or five hours of sleep on the way, and felt fairly refreshed as we watched the comedy team of baggage handlers try to round up 69 passengers and their bags at the Istanbul airport. Then it was off to meet our ship.

Our luggage is on the bottom.

 

Sushi Pop

At last! There’s a sophisticated and trendy restaurant in Orlando. Sushi Pop in Oviedo combines highly creative sushi with a touch of molecular gastronomy and an anime-inspired decor to create a top notch experience worthy of New York City. Highlights were:

  • Edamame with garlic salt
  • Ceviche roll (hamachi with avocado, tempura shallots and chipotle lime sauce topped with flounder, siracha hot sauce, micro cilantro, Hawaiian pink salt and wedge of lime)
  • Hot Mess roll (smoked salmon, avocado and tempura flakes with maple soy, topped with baked tuna, salmon, yellowtail, flounder, spicy mayo, smelt roe, scallions and rendered bacon)
  • Hamachi Kama (grilled yellowtail collar glazed with sweet soy, topped with toasted garlic, scallions, lime wedge and ponzu dipping sauce)
  • It’s No Yolk (fresh cubed salmon tossed with lime juice, olive oil, shallots, thai basil with sunny side egg of sweet coconut milk and mango puree, served with seaweed rice cracker)
  • Maple ice cream with candied bacon

The seating is a combination of tables, couch-like booths and bar stools. Servers wear individual quirky costumes. Anime plays on flat screens, and the wall art is manga. Reservations are a must, as the place was packed, inside and out, during our three-hour gastronomic tour. Highly Recommended.

Thirst of the Nation

Last night Linda and I went to a charity fundraiser, Taste of the Nation, at the Marriott World Center. Similar events are held in cities around the country. It’s one of those events where a few dozen restaurants and wineries set up tables in a convention center and donate their food and wine, while donors eat, drink and bid on silent auction items to raise money. (Let’s set aside the irony of doing this to stop childhood hunger.)

I can’t speak too harshly of this event, because it was for charity, and because the restaurants and especially Marriott put a tremendous effort into it. And the food was fantastic. I’ve been to dozens of such events, and this was the best food I’ve encountered.

The problem was the wine. There almost wasn’t any. Or anything else to drink, for that matter. With hundreds of guests, I doubt there were a dozen bottles on offer. In fact there was such a shortage of beverages that soon lines formed at the Nestle water products table!

This had a secondary disastrous effect, because the silent auction is, let’s face it, fueled by intoxication. And with the auction ending at 9:30, but the VIP spenders arriving at 6:00, I doubt there were many left to bid. I can’t say for sure, because we left after sixty minutes and went to the Vineyard Grill at the Ritz Carlton. For a bottle of wine.

Asiate

The reviews of Asiate all said it had a great view. That’s all they said. So I was a little worried about making it our final meal on this New York trip. But it was right across the street from our hotel, on the top of the Mandarin Oriental in the Time Warner Building, so we gave it a shot. It turned out to be a good choice. The sashimi appetizer I had was the best ever, and I eat a lot of sashimi. The tuna was perfect–buttery and plentiful–and it sat on a bed of complex ingredients and sauces. The salmon entree was also quite good. And as you can see, the view can’t be beat.

A nice end to a nice trip. We packed a lot into these three days in New York.

l’Atelier NYC

We finished our last full day in New York with a visit to Joel Robuchon’s l’Atelier in the Four Seasons Hotel. I really enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and great food at l’Atelier. We’ve tried them in London and Las Vegas, and this one was just as good. The servers are friendly and informative, and the sushi bar-like setting is unique.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark gets a makeover

We just got back from Spider-Man. This is the second time we’ve seen a show before and after they fixed it (The Addams Family was the first). The original version was so bad it prompted me to write a review entitled Spiderman: Turn Off the Suck. This version of Spider-Man is nearly a total rewrite. I’d say more than half the dialogue was new. They added 30 minutes of exposition to explain the plot and motivations, rearranged some confusing scenes, re-staged most scenes, cut several subplots that didn’t work, made much better use of their moving video walls, and essentially discarded the original act 2, nearly in its entirety. They also got rid of the “geek” chorus, the spiders with mannequin legs and the lonely guitarists standing at the edge of the stage.

In the original version, the main villain, the Green Goblin, died very early in the show, and the second act was incomprehensible nonsense about a spider goddess making Peter Parker think New York had been destroyed so he would fall in love with her. Thankfully, that is gone, and now the Green Goblin survives until the very end. Because he was so funny, they have given him several opportunities to essentially do a standup schtick with the audience, and there is a hysterical bit where he tries to navigate a voice mail system to leave a threatening message. This also moves the climactic battle to the end of the show. Duh. These changes have upgraded the show from a D- to a B+. It was an expensive but shrewd move to close this show for six weeks, dump director Julie Taymor and start over. I applaud those who had the guts to take a chance on it.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Some Broadway shows have plots so convoluted that it requires advance study to follow them. This is a not a problem for Priscilla Queen of the Desert. The entire plot may be summarized as: three drag queens and a bus.

That’s not to say the show isn’t fun. It is. Filled with stunning costumes (cupcakes, human paint brushes, a dress made of flip flops), top notch musical performances, and a collection of pop hits from the 70s and 80s, the show will delight anyone who enjoyed La Cage Aux Folles (although that show actually has a deep story).

As good as the cast was, they were at times upstaged by the bus. It twirls, spins, opens up, hangs over the front rows of the audience, serves as an anchor for a twenty foot long high-heeled shoe, and eventually every surface of it is revealed to be a video wall. If it sounds tacky, it is, but all in good fun. The audience ate it up.

Earlier in the day we had lunch at Jean Georges, one of our favorites, and New York’s best lunch deal. It was a novelty to simply walk downstairs from our room to go to the restaurant.

Then we went for a long walk in Central Park. I’d never really had a chance to explore before, and we climbed to the top of Belvedere Castle. It was fun, but hot, and we all needed showers when we got back to the room.

Our late dinner after the show was at db Bistro Moderne. So nice to be in a town where you can make an 11pm dinner reservation and not be keeping the waiters up late.

Eleven Madison Park

A few months ago Linda and I went to Eleven Madison Park with our friends Ron and Bev, and had the best meal of our lives. So it was with some trepidation that I made a reservation for a return visit during this trip. Everything was so perfect in that earlier meal that I was afraid we were set up for disappointment. But it was just as perfect on this visit. Both food and service were just as delightful.

The amazing thing about the food here is the number of discrete flavors identifiable in each and every dish, and then the way they come together into something greater than the individual elements. Through about twenty different offerings on the tasting menu, each course offered new tastes, as there were few repeats from our previous visit. This time we had the matching wine pairing, which was also a little bit of genius. Definitely our favorite restaurant anywhere.

Trump International Hotel

This is the first time we’ve tried this hotel, and it seems ideal. Our room is a spacious one-bedroom suite that overlooks Central Park. The view is really quite amazing. Best of all, the hotel restaurant is one of our favorites, Jean Georges. I had no idea they served breakfast, but we can’t pass that up, even though we’re also having lunch there tomorrow! The Amex platinum deal is great, with one night free, breakfast included, and late checkout. And it’s an easy walk to the theaters and restaurants we have planned, except for tonight’s outing to Eleven Madison Park.

 

Yorktown and Clamagore

Dani was up late editing her Duchess of Malfi video, so she slept in, and when she got up we walked a few blocks to The Pit Stop Deli for some tasty sandwiches. Then we drove across Charleston’s impressive Bridge to Patriot’s Point to see the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier and the USS Clamagore submarine.

The Yorktown offers a half dozen self-guided tours. We wandered through many levels, seeing the mess, galleys, bunks, sick bay, surgery, x-ray room, radar rooms (one full of giant racks, one with red lights and many small screens), navigation room, bridge, helm, and flight deck. It was neat to see all this sixty year old high tech equipment. The tour is definitely not ADA compliant, as there are many ladders, both up and down, and many water tight doorways with six inch sills.

On the other side of the quay we descended into the USS Clamagore, the last of the navy’s diesel powered submarines. This was an even more interesting sub tour than the U-boat in Chicago, because it is nearly unaltered from its original condition. That means you have to swing up and through the many watertight hatches that separate the compartments. I think this sub is similar to the one Tom Gottshalk served on. I can’t imagine how crowded it must have been with a full crew, as some of the corridors were so narrow that both my shoulders touched.

Both ships were really interesting tours, and the breeze from the ocean kept the 90 degree day pleasant.

Dinner at Peninsula Grill in our hotel, voted Charleston’s best restaurant every year since 2001, was very good. The highlight was the Madeira tasting flight:

  • 1969 D’Oliveiras Sercial Reserva
  • 1981 Barbieto Verdelho
  • 1968 D’Oliveiras Boal Reserva
  • 1875 Barbieto Malvasia

Road Trip: Chicago to Orlando 2011

10 Days, 11 States: Chicago IL, Indiana, Detroit MI, Cleveland OH, Pittsburgh PA, Hot Springs VA, Beckley WV, Asheville NC, Sevierville TN, Charleston SC, Savannah GA, Jacksonville FL and home to Orlando. A little over 2000 miles.

The day before the road trip we decided to be Chicago tourists.

We took advantage of having a car on our last day in Chicago to do touristy things, visiting the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Sears (er, I mean Willis) Tower.

They’ve really fixed up the museum, as the last time we were there, four years ago, most stuff seemed to be broken. On this visit there were lots of new exhibits, and everything seemed to be working. Hopefully it’s because they’re using lots of our gear.

The body exhibit was the main thing Dani was interested in. They’ve taken real human bodies and replaced all the part with injected plastic, then performed autopsies on them. Fascinating, but not for the squeamish.

We also went through the U-Boat, which is now indoors. I could have spent several hours at that exhibit alone. They’ve added audio and lighting effects to the tour of the sub itself, which is quite effective.

We also went to the Wills (Sears) Tower and stood on the glass floor. They had a pretty good movie before the elevator ride. It seems that some smaller attractions are getting better at hiring storytellers to design their experiences.

Lincoln Park Zoo

Now that Dani has finished her German class (and got an A, of course) we have a couple of free days in Chicago before our road trip. We spent today at the Lincoln Park Zoo, a lovely oasis of greenery in the midst of the Chicago skyline.

 

 

 

Fourth of July in Evanston

We decided to avoid the traffic and stay in Evanston for the Fourth of July. Dani made her traditional berry and jello flag cake, I grilled some steaks, Linda made Julia Child’s sauteed pearl onions, and we watched the spectacular Evanston beach fireworks show from the balcony.

Julia Child’s Sauteed Pearl Onions

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons butter with one and one-half tablespoons of the oil until bubbling in a skillet.

Add onions and sauté over moderate heat for about 10 minutes, rolling them so they will brown as evenly as possible. Be careful not to break their skins. You cannot expect them to brown uniformly.

Add 1/2 cup of the stock, salt and pepper to taste and the herb bouquet.

Cover and simmer slowly for 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but hold their shape, and the liquid has evaporated.

 

The Girl and the Goat

The Girl and the Goat is the new restaurant by Stephanie Izard, winner of Top Chef. Barely open a year, it has already won a James Beard award, and is the hottest restaurant in Chicago. I reserved our table three months in advance.

I was a bit wary of going the day after Moto, and some of the menu items seemed a bit scary (oven roasted pig’s face). What a delightful surprise this restaurant turned out to be! We loved all the plates we shared. We tried all three fresh baked breads of the day. Each was served with two different accompaniments, such as Worchestshire butter. Our favorite dishes were:

  • Wood fired chicken with fried pickles and grilled naan.
  • Sauteed cauliflower with pickled peppers, parmesan cheese, mint leaves and pine nuts.
  • Goat belly confit with lobster and crab.

Service was really professional yet friendly, and the vibrant environment and wood smoke filled room is the perfect setting for such fun and tasty food. The Girl and the Goat is a new Chicago favorite.


Moto

Saturday night we made our annual visit to the molecular gastronomy weirdness that is Moto. We often use a limo service to get to Chicago, because the cost for a town car is about the same as a cab. But every once in a while they run out of town cars, and we get a stretch limo, as was the case last night. It was fun playing with the inscrutable controls and watching a movie on the way.

At Moto we had the 20-course grand tasting menu. It sounds like a lot, but most courses are only a couple of bites or sips, and it takes almost five hours, so you don’t leave feeling stuffed. We also had the matching wine pairing, 14 small samples of wines.

Moto was packed, and they turned the tables of those having the ten-course menu twice. I felt that the service wasn’t quite as fun and the food not quite as consistent as in the past. There were still some wonderful courses, but also a fair number of neat looking but not particularly awe inspiring dishes. The wines seemed better than usual, though, and all of them perfectly matched their courses.

I managed to photograph most of the courses, but forgot a few. Favorites: Pretzel soup, baseball snacks, most of the red meat courses, the banana split and the smores bomb. Big misses: Shrimp and grits, cookie crumbs.

Moto isn’t the sort of place I’d go more than once a year, but if you haven’t tried molecular gastronomy, it’s definitely worth the experience.

Hall and Oates at Ravinia

Here’s a trivia question for you:

What is the biggest selling musical duo of all time?

Awww, you peeked. Yup, it’s Hall and Oates. Don’t bother to try to guess who’s number two. (It’s The Pet Shop Boys.) Clearly, there are not a lot of musical duos.

When we were at Ravinia for Deep Purple last week, I thought it was sold out. Turns out, though that the lawn can hold a lot more people. I mean, a LOT more people:

Basically, Hall and Oates is mostly Hall (the blond with the personality, who sings almost every song). Of the eight piece band, the sax player and lead guitarist do most of the heavy lifting. They put on a good show, but were hampered by audio problems that kept the crowd from really getting into it until the end of their less than 90 minute set.

Before the show we talked our way into the Park View restaurant, although our reservations were really for the Mirabella buffet downstairs. Really impressive food for a seasonal restaurant staffed by college kids.

Leaving the concert during the second encore was a good move, as we rolled home on the Metra train as thousands of people gathered to wait for the next one.

Songwriters Showcase

Last night we attended the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Showcase, where 16 incredibly talented young songwriters show off the songs they’ve written during the past week’s workshop. Last year it was the highlight of the summer shows we saw, and it didn’t disappoint this year. Every song was a winner.

Tonight we attended Applause! Applause! where the best of those songs were presented to a larger audience, along with professional performances from the songbook of Charles Strouse, who was honored with an award. Strouse wrote Bye, Bye Birdie, Applause, Annie, and quite a few other musicals, as well as the theme song from All In The Family. At the end of the evening he received his award and entertained at the piano and told some hilarious stories; he’s quite the card for an 83 year old.

Earlier today Dani and I walked through the closed streets of Evanston, where there was an art festival, and then walked up to Central to buy some spices at The Spice House and some cheese and bread at the gourmet market. All together it was a five mile walk, and her ankle held up well, its first real outing since taking her cast off and starting physical therapy.

During our walk we revisited some of the fallen trees from last week’s storm, which have now been cut up and cleared. It’s not hard to figure out why this large branch—that I photographed previously—broke off:

Painting

Last night an impressive storm blew through Evanston, knocking out our power five times. This morning 48 buildings on the Northwestern campus were still without power, according to an email sent to Dani. Fortunately, Dani’s German class was unaffected.

The storm left a gorgeous morning in its wake, and I took advantage of it to walk up to Expo Paint on Green Bay near Central Avenue, a mile or so to the north.

Along the way I was surprised to see how many large tree limbs were down, on lawns, the sidewalk, and in the roads. The storm must have been a lot stronger to the north. City crews were already clearing away the bits and pieces, and the park was full of day camp kids enjoying a truly beautiful day.

My mission at Expo Paint was to buy some paint to match the ugly green color that’s coating the walls of the condo bedroom. This is necessary because one of Dani’s roommates used double stick tape on the walls, and it’s removed large chunks of the textured surface. I dropped off a chunk at Expo and went over to the market to get some fresh baked bread while I waited. In a few minutes they called me and said my paint was ready.

I guess they scanned the paint chip I took them, because the match is almost exact. Let me tell you that lugging a gallon of paint for a mile is not fun! Now the trick is to get the paint on so that it matches the original texture. My first attempt with a brush failed, so I went back to Ace Hardware for a roller.

For lunch Dani and I went to Cafe 527. It’s a new Asian place that had the nerve to open next door to the popular Joy Yee’s Noodle Shop. The plan seems to be working, as 527 was packed. The Korean BBQ taco I had was delicious, filled with bulgogi beef, kimchee, rice and cilantro, and served on seaweed rather than a tortilla. The miso shrimp salad was also tasty, although the shrimp was the least interesting part. The crunchy lettuce and cabbage mixture was enhanced by green peppers, scallions, and edamame. It went well with a miso based honey mustard dressing.

My other home improvement project was accomplished a lot quicker than the paint touchups. I ordered a wallpaper mural for the bare spot over the sink. It took about a minute to install, and really makes the kitchen look nice.

The rain is teasing us this afternoon, looking threatening, but then barely sprinkling. For dinner I’m fixing hamburgers unless it’s pouring, in which case they will turn into meatloaf.

Basil Chicken, Sweet Potato Casserole, Brussels Sprouts

Basil Chicken

I thought I had memorialized Linda’s Basil Chicken recipe on this blog, but apparently not, so here’s my version:

Ingredients

  • Boneless chicken breasts
  • Onion
  • Lemon
  • Basil leaves
  • White Wine
  • Milk
  • Olive Oil
  • Salt and Pepper or Poultry Seasoning

Directions

Pound the chicken breasts. Sauté the onions in oil, add chicken breasts and sauté until brown. Remove breasts, place basil leaves on them. Deglaze the pan, add white wine, lemon juice and a dash of milk, and reduce. Pour over breasts and basil.

To accompany it, I made a…

Sweet Potato Casserole

This turns out fluffy enough that it’s almost a souffle with a topping:

Ingredients

  • 4 cups sweet potato
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • Five spice
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:

  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • Five spice

Directions

Boil chunked potatoes and mash. Add sugar, beaten eggs, vanilla extract and five spice. Some recipes add milk or butter but I didn’t. Mix and place in baking dish.

For topping, mix brown sugar, flour, butter and pecans. Layer on top of sweet potatoes.

May be refrigerated until time for dinner.

Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes, or until brown.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic Vinegar

Ingredients

  • Brussels Sprouts
  • Olive Oil
  • Balsamic Vinegar
  • Salt and Pepper

Cut brussels sprouts in half, toss ingredients together.

Roast at 375°F, cut side down, 15 minutes, flip, roast ten minutes more.

Cleaning House

In other news, today I had Dial-a-Maid come for four hours and unearth the condo. The sink is now white again.

Lock & Lock Korma

One of my missions this year in Evanston is to make lots of one-serving meals for Dani’s freezer. I ran errands to Ace Hardware and Whole Foods, returning with about 50 pounds of stuff in the poor shopping basket cart. After restocking the fridge I set out to make Lamb Korma with Moroccan basmati raisin rice, sweet potatoes and Caesar salad.

I boxed the leftover rice and korma into some nifty containers I got on Amazon. They’re called Lock & Lock (not a great name, I know) and are very durable, microwave and freezer safe, and they have a gasket that seals them completely with locks on all four sides. I bought them because of the good reviews on Amazon, without completely understanding what they were, but they’ve worked out perfectly. The ones I got are fairly small, about 3x5x2 inches, so just right for one entree serving. Five down, about a zillion to go.

Father’s Day at The Stained Glass

Dani and I spent a pleasant day in Evanston before the start of summer session at Northwestern. We walked up to Al’s Deli for lunch. Al’s is an interesting place, because it sounds very American, but is, in fact, French. They make wonderful soups, and sandwiches on  baguettes or croissants.

On the way back, we picked up Dani’s German class notes and restocked at CVS. In the evening we swapped some books at Market Fresh Books and then had dinner at our favorite Evanston restaurant, The Stained Glass, where we were served by our favorite waiter, the extremely knowledgeable wine instructor, Scot Morton.

 

Deep Purple at the Ravinia Festival

Ravinia is an outdoor music festival founded in 1904. It’s a few miles North of Evanston.

Dani and I went to see Deep Purple with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra and opening band Ernie and the Automatics.

Dinner at the upstairs restaurant was quite pleasant. It’s amazing to have to kick start a fine dining restaurant every summer.

It was an unexpected treat that two members of Ernie and the Automatics were the guitarist and drummer from Boston, who played a Boston medley.

Deep Purple was excellent– very talented guitarist and keyboard player– and it was fun to hear them with an orchestra.

Owl City

Dani and I went to see Owl City at The House of Blues. The first warm-up band, Unwed Sailor, consisted of a talented drummer and three people who stared at the floor.  In the absence of any melody or words (no singer) all of their songs sounded like the first five seconds, repeated for five minutes.

The second act was Mat Kearney, who was quite good.

But the audience was clearly there to see Owl City. This was a very different audience than I’d ever encountered at House of Blues, which normally attracts—how can I put this—drunk Gen Xers. Owl City attracts ages 8 to 60, but the average was probably 14. We also noticed the audience was essentially 100% Caucasion. The place was packed, upstairs and down.

I was afraid Owl City would turn out to be one guy (Adam Young) with a Macbook, but there were actually six talented musicians, and an assortment of instruments: two drum sets, many keyboards, cello, violin, bass, vibraphone, xylophone, and many guitars.  Since there is almost no guitar in their music as first I thought the guitars were just props, but they did play a couple of songs where Adam demonstrated excellent guitar proficiency.

It was surprising that the music sounded completely different when played live. They used almost no auto-tune on the voices, and there was much more acoustic stuff. Definitely more complex than the typical tween band. They played two hours, which was great, but it meant we were standing for four hours. House of Blues is still the worst venue in town, but this was an excellent concert.

Bull and Bear

Ron organized a last dinner before my trip to Evanston, and we met at The Bull and Bear at the Waldorf Astoria. Dani flew in Friday, so she was able to join us. The five of us spent a lovely five hours in the private room, with great service by Arnaud. Even though Chef was out of town, Arnaud found plenty of interesting selections to keep the courses coming.

The Wines

We need to stop pouring the Burgundies first! These were mostly great wines, but the memory of the 49 Burgs blew everything else away. Those two continued to evolve for hours. I selected six wines from our cellar, and Ron matched them:

Mumm de Cramant Champagne (Ron)
Citrus, cream, 93

2005 Henri Boillot Corton Charlemagne (Ron)
Ash, vanilla, floral, lemon, hibiscus flower petal flavor, expect butter but ends with citrus peel, 96

2001 Ch. Carbonnieux (Steve)
corked

1949 Liger-Belair Charmes-Chambertin (Steve)
Earth, complex, bacon fat, campfire smoke, iron, mushroom, citrus, forest floor, dried fruits, vanilla, dessert room at Berns (bananas foster and barrel), slightly faded, 96

1949 Ponelle Corton Clos de Roi (Ron)
Cherries, rose petals, soy sauce, meat, mint, sawdust, fruity, smoke, fresh, 98

1955 Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve (Steve)
Young, peppers, fruity, leather, 95

1965 Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon California Mountain (Steve)
Dusty, wax, musty, black pepper, 88

1962 Château Gruaud Larose (Steve)
Leather, worchestshire sauce, soy, complex but unusual, (low fill) 90

1966 Chateau La Mission Haut Brion (Steve)
Lead pencil, peppers, tobacco, 95

2000 Ch. Pavie (Ron)
Parker 100
Meaty, vanilla, chewy, lanolin, very tannic, candy, a huge wine, drinkable in 2044, 96

1983 Ch. Suideraut (Ron)
Peach, citrus, dried orange peel, 90

1982 Bodegas Toro Albala Montilla-Moriles Don PX Gran Reserva (Steve)
Syrup, chocolate, raisins, 92

Cocina 214

Most restaurants open to indifference and close within a year. But every once in a while someplace hits upon exactly what the public wants and is an instant success. Cocina 214 is not a place I would have predicted would fall into the latter category, which is why I’m not in the restaurant business.

Located on an obscure side street off of Park Avenue in Winter Park, it’s even hard to find the door. But last month, when we heard about the place opening online and checked out their interesting modern Tex Mex menu, we decided to try it before they went out of business. No worries there. When we arrived today for lunch the valet was having trouble finding places to park cars, and there were at least a hundred people packing the restaurant’s dining rooms. Clearly there is an unsatisfied demand for gourmet Mexican food in this town.

Everything we had was good, especially Linda’s ceviche, and her chicken quesadilla, which was the best quesadilla I ever tasted — except for the ones Linda makes herself (and this one probably had about 5000 fewer calories). I also liked my fish tacos, and the verde y verde salsa we ordered was a great blend of lime, cilantro and jalapeno.

Prices were reasonable. Our waiter should return to whatever his former profession was, but I noticed that everyone working the dining rooms, kitchen and front desk seemed to be really happy to be there. The place is pretty noisy when it’s full, so I recommend dining outside on the patio.

In case you’re wondering, Cocina is Spanish for kitchen and 214 is the area code for Dallas, which is not where this restaurant is. But it’s definitely worth checking out Cocina 214 in Winter Park.

Nine 18

One of the under-appreciated restaurants in town is actually the closest to us (well, not counting sneaking in the back entrance to Victoria & Alberts). It’s Nine 18 at the Grand Cypress Golf Resort. The restaurant used to be The Black Swan, but about ten years ago they changed the name and reduced the prices, while keeping the menu pretty much the same. I’m not sure how that worked out for them, because the place is still usually empty, but they need to stay open to cater to their resort guests. Anyway, you can reliably get an almost great meal there for a reasonable price, and the service is terrific.

Wines That Don’t Rock

Every couple of months there is a “Vine and Dine” event at the Everglades Restaurant at the Rosen Omni Center near the Convention Center. The events are usually quite fun, because the chef rises to the challenge of matching foods to wines, and you meet some interesting people at the communal tables. The event seems to attract a mixture of locals who are neither wine snobs nor newbies, plus random tourists.

Unfortunately, last night’s event wasn’t that great. The wines were a gimmick from the Mendocino Wine Company which owns Parducci. Made by Parducci’s assistant winemaker, they are basically supermarket plonk with a rock album label attached. The Chardonnay, in particular, suffered from severe smoke taint, and really shouldn’t have been bottled at all. The food was good but not really things we’d prefer to eat. And the people sitting around us happened to be newbies on dates, so it wasn’t nearly as interesting an evening as usual.

Oh well, maybe next time.