the world is your acorn

Well, The Little Red Haired Girl finally did it. She finished her master’s thesis, which means that we spent the last week up in Boston attending Commencement activities (and spending some time with wedding planning while we were up there).

Highlights of commencement:

• We watched the broadcast of morning exercises from a lecture hall, which was fantastic. We were out of the rain, we could see the stage, and Diana Eck and James Anderson did a great job commentating (wish I could find a picture of them)
• Sandwiches from Lee’s Sandwich Shop between Graduation and the commencement address
• J.K. Rowling’s commencement address was phenomenal. She was witty and intelligent and interesting, expounding on the benefits of failure, imagination as empathy, and the importance of acting as a result.
• Dinner at Carlo’s Cucina

There’s a character in some Ann Tyler book (maybe it’s Back When We Were Grownups?) who makes himself a big batch of something (stew, meatloaf, pot roast, something like that) once a week and just eats that until it’s gone, every day. It struck me as the most depressing thing ever at the time. Actually, it still seems really depressing, but this past week since The Little Red Haired Girl has been out of town I’ve been doing something similar. Not nearly as depressing, and actually quite enjoyable for me, but still reminiscent of that character (whom it turns out I don’t really remember that much about at all).

In general, when left to my own devices at home I just won’t eat, I’ll drink my dinner, or I’ll eat some previously canned or frozen crap. It’s partly that I’m lazy, and partly that cooking only appeals to me when I need a stress release, and/or there is someone to appreciate my cooking, and/or there is someone there to do the dishes later. Given that The Little Red Haired Girl was to be gone a full 6 days, and my stomach has been behaving badly as it is, I figured I needed some sort of new strategy. So at the beginning of the week I did two things. I cooked a package of bacon, and made some broth and chicken for Vietnamese chicken pho soup. The rest of the week I had two of my daily meals were cobb salad and chicken pho soup. It has worked out quite well, but I’m now out of bacon and broth, and am starting to feel lonely.

After having a fire lit under my ass about exploring the restaurants down on Nolensville Road, The Little Red Haired Girl, The Superheroes and I hit Istanbul Cafe last week for our kickoff Nolensville Wednesday. I hate to say, I was a little disappointed. Maybe we just didn’t order the right thing. Stupidly we forgot to check the article from Good Magazine to find out what the recommended thing was.

We started off with some fantastic stuffed grape leaves, which I forgot to get a picture of. They just looked like 7 grape leaves on a plate, anyway. The Superheroes ordered a salmon plate and white bean soup while we ordered some sort of meat combo. The entrees were so-so, but cheap with huge portions. We thought most of the things on our plate were too salty. The salmon that The Superheroes ordered didn’t seem to come with everything as described on the menu, but there was still plenty of food and the salmon was quite good. The service was strange and inattentive I thought, and we never got the olives that we thought we ordered. The Little Red Haired Girl and I talked about this later and decided that we never actually expect the service to be all that good in small cheap eateries. But if the food isn’t great, then it becomes an issue for some reason.

Anyway, I’m not sure we’ll go back to Istanbul Cafe, but if someone invited me I wouldn’t refuse. I think I might ask for recommendations about what to order though. I’m not discouraged about Nolensville Wednesday either. Wherever we end up this week, I’ll make sure I do a little more research about what to order.

The Little Red Haired Girl is gone for the weekend, and I seem to have lost my mind. I baked and am now eating a Pillsbury cinnamon bun for breakfast. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Pillsbury ready to bake products. I actually spend a lot of time stuffing them with sundry other items. I just don’t usually partake in sweet baked goods. I just don’t enjoy them that much, and I rarely crave them without some sort of hormonal encouragement. Give me a salty snack any day. Well, now that I’m eating this one, I have no idea what I’ll do with the other 4. Maybe I’ll use them as some sort of hamburger or hot dog bun.

For three years now I’ve been complaining about the lack of good ethnic food in Nashville, all the while knowing that I haven’t really checked out Nolensville Rd. Shame on me, I know, but it’s just always seemed too insider, too hard to figure out where to go. Well, now I have somewhere to start. GOOD Magazine listed it as one of America’s 7 tastiest streets for affordable food, and they name five “Don’t Miss” restaurants:

ABAY ETHIOPIAN RESTAURANT 3792 Nolensville Pike
Try the: Meat combo with seven items

NORMAN COUSER’S COUNTRY COOKING 3754 Nolensville Road
Try the: Fried chicken

ISTANBUL CAFÉ 2631 Nolensville Road
Try the: Lahmacun

LA HACIENDA MARISQUERIA 3744 Nolensville Road
Try the: Fish tacos

PARISA’S 2424 Nolensville Pike
Try the: Fessenjoon

I’m psyched to go forth and pop my Nolensville cherry. Now I just have to find some folks to share my local eating adventure with. Anyone?

“Good Magazine names streets around the country with cheap and tasty food” [via Slashfood]

I visited New York a couple weeks ago with The Little Red Haired Girl, Lady E, and The Superheroes. Here are some of the delicious things we ate while there:

Noodle Soup with Chicken at Mee Noodle Shop on 9th at 53rd:

Foie Gras at Les Halles on Park Ave (it looked way better that this photo):

Noodle soup with duck at Noodles on 28 on 3rd at 28th:

Ceviche, steamed crab in banana leaf, and plantain encrusted goat cheese at Esperanto on C and 9th:

I found this out on Wednesday, but have not been able to bring myself to talk about it. It’s just so sad. The Yankee Doodle in New Haven closed this week. It’s understandable, they just can’t make enough money. A bunch of folks are trying to “save the doodle,” and it looks like the owners are accepting donations, so maybe there is still hope.

If you don’t know, the Doodle was this tiny diner-type restaurant over by the Broadway strip. Basically you walked in the door and there was a counter running to the back, and enough room to either sit at the counter or stand behind someone sitting at the counter.

The first time I went was as a high school student; my advisor then was a Yale alum, and thought it a travesty for his students never to have experienced the Doodle. So one day he arranged for us all to meet over there for lunch. The place was packed, so that people were standing and eating or waiting outside the door for their food to be ready to take away.

It’s hard to describe why the place was so great. Clearly, part of it was that it was family-owned and operated, so the same folks were always behind the counter and they got to know you. But for me, it was the food. They had a small menu, but everything they made was delicious. Mostly I think of the hamburgers. There’s nothing like it. They scoop some chopped onions onto the burger before pressing it into the grill. Then they butter up the bun and toast that in the hamburger grease. When those things are done they top it with mystery barbecue sauce that is strange and chunky and delicious. There were other things too, that are part of Doodle legend. Like the doughnuts that they slice in half, grill in the hamburger grease, then serve with cold vanilla ice cream. Or the muffins that they slather with butter, then, of course, grill in the hamburger grease. Egg sandwiches. Omelets. Freaking delicious. And, they’d open early enough on Saturday mornings that we’d be able to get hamburgers for breakfast on our way to rugby games.

Then there were the burger eating contests. Who doesn’t have a friend who took “The Doodle Challenge,” trying to beat the most recent record of number of burgers eaten in an hour, only to end up puking in the bucket placed outside the door for these occasions?

I’m just sad it’s gone. Lady E and I went to their website as soon as I found out to see if we could get some Doodle paraphernalia, and we ordered some. It’s hard to believe that next time we go back to The Haves there will be no burgers or doughnuts or muffins. Sad.

Yesterday afternoon The Little Red Haired Girl and I embarked on a three hour journey to Birmingham with our New Little Buddies. We had plans to have dinner at one of the only restaurants in the city open on Sundays, then head over to UAB to see the Indigo Girls and Brandi Carlile. I had never heard them play together live before, so I was pretty excited for the show. And I’ve been a huge Indigo Girls fan for so long that I’m just always excited to see them play.

Anyway, we go to the restaurant, and meet our New Little Buddy’s sister and brother-in-law, who are totally fun. The restaurant was also pretty delicious, although it was literally empty except for us and the service was a little slow and surprisingly unknowledgeable about the menu despite the fanciness of the place.

So, we rushed through dessert to get to the theater with enough time not to miss a minute of Brandi, and were delighted to find a parking space pretty much right in front of the building. Come to find out there was tons of parking available because the concert had been postponed “due to illness.” So freaking disappointed. We drove the 3 hours home, tail between our legs, too sheepish to admit that we were actually glad to get home by 10pm on a Sunday night. But definitely sad about the show.

It has been rescheduled for a Monday in a few weeks. I think we can go, but we’ll be totally exhausted for Tuesday, and we’ll have to drive the 6 hours there and back again. Plus, we are worried that they won’t be playing with Brandi then. They are touring with Michelle Malone the next few weeks, which is super cool, but I’d just really been looking forward to seeing them play with Brandi. I’ve seen them play with Michelle Malone a few times before, although it was years ago. Maybe they’ll feel bad for postponing and all 4 of them will play for the postponed show! Wishful thinking, I know.

So, after my unsuccessful almost no-knead bread try, I decided I’d try something else I don’t know how to make and see how that goes. Since we found some cauliflower on sale and some cheap ground pork at the grocery store this past weekend, The Little Red Haired Girl and I decided we’d try to make something with Moroccan flavors. I went with a cauliflower recipe from Epicurious (but drastically altered since we didn’t have half the ingredients) and Elise’s Moroccan Meat Loaf recipe, but with pork instead of lamb and beef. Here’s a crappy picture of the delicious dinner we came up with:

I also got the chance to use our new wireless remote thermometer, which we got as an engagement present in November. Very nice to chill on the couch and watch the numbers go up on the little remote doohicky and not play the “is it done yet” poking and guessing game.”