the blue moon diner

pink pearl

spudnuts

undoubtedly fresh but unfortunately also mediocre.

coffee with room

morning coffee

[references: ben s]

charlottesville, va

readiness is everything

when everyone else on this flight is regretting not packing a grapefruit, we will be sitting pretty.

coffee omakase

last day at the hirise on brattle street. i caffeinated at the bar's pleasure, which was a single-shot clockwork gibraltar in the calibrated cup and a micro open-face sandwich of brioche with speculoos paste. haziness in photographs a side-effect of anticipatory nostalgia.

hot tomato

rye and oat sourdough, lentils, roasted eggplant, squash, and peppers, tomato, thai basil.

just because you can doesn't mean you should

i asked a coffee pro today if he would be getting one of the new luminaire taps. he said that it's a great concept but they'd decided not to install one because he's not willing to give up the opportunity to interact with the customer over the ritual of a v60 or woodneck kettle freehand pour. and i thought: it's just as well that we are able to evaluate a technology and decide, fully informed, that we don't want to use it. (on which also see: the green revolution in india, hydraulic fracturing, starbucks, and the fashion of the 1980s).

truth

[thx josh]

catastrophe!

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our japanese correspondent

darryl lives and works in tokyo, where he seems to spend all his time cultivating an extensive network of good places to eat. he ran across tsuru ni tachibana and we went there for the first time when i was in tokyo this january. it was a surprising, outstanding meal: classical kaiseki feeling, but with a selected set of the classical kaiseki trappings; the full report here. out of a sense of vague obligation to the old line restaurants, i'd also been to kikunoi in tokyo. tsuru ni tachibana blew it out of the water. (what is kaiseki? see here for a partial explanation.)

sometimes, darryl sends me annotated menus from when he eats there in order to tantalise and frustrate from a distance. i guess there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

this is the menu from february, verbatim:

• kabura-mushi (steamed quenelle of mashed turnip with oyster, shirako, nameko etc)
• hotaru-ika two ways: sashimi and steamed with kale puree; shin tamanegi tofu (another mighty tasty square); kyoto-style omelet with tuna innard sauce
• sawara and shirako in broth
• horse sushi
• another beef steak, not an ichibo, with lightly pickled mizuna and kelp
• soba with baby onion and bonito puree, baby onion slices, fried onion bits (this was amazing - like a variation on daikon-oroshi soba, except sweeter, sourer and less astringent)
• black sesame pudding

and the latest menu from july (7/28/2011; italics indicate "exceptional deliciousness"):

• chilled chawanmushi with shrimp and gingko, red capsicum sauce
• smoked eggplant with fugu dashi gelee; raw oshu free range chicken nanban ae (some yuzu kosho in there); fruit tomato nanban-zuke; grilled madai with taramo (tarako + potato) sauce, smoked mackerel with black bean puree
• bowl course with grilled sea bass and junsai
• minced pork, leek and myoga spring roll with pumpkin sauce
• simmered kamo eggplant with kikuchi beef rib roast and kujo negi sauce
• cold somen in ago dashi
• hoji-cha ice cream

home

franklin street, cambridge, ma.

club sandwich returns

i've missed club sandwich this summer; it, like friday morning coffee and toscanini's, is one of the reasons why cambridge is one of the great good places. last night, we assembled at craigie on main for drinks at the bar but got shunted into the main dining room. the hordes of people lining up for the bar are in the know.*

anyway. with new faces come new appositional phrases. the original ("club sandwich: edgy but well-parameterised") now has a friend:

club sandwich: pretentious assholes.

* the three-drink cocktail special is only available at the bar, without exception. only visit the dining room if you have an expense account and, even then, think twice.

roof access has many virtues

lunch residue

science

via electroncafe.wordpress.com

it left paw prints in the shellac

good morning

yogurt, honey, favourite cup, favourite spoon.

chagrin

cleveland, oh

here we go again

cleveland until sunday. above you see skilled hands making a fine salad.

it's nice to be home

see you later, scandinavia

now leaving oslo, and not a moment too soon. three weeks after the copenhagen flood of july 2, water has finally insinuated its way into the depths of my laptop. it started with misfires on the keyboard, then the touchpad became jumpy and unreliable. today, the screen is flickering ominously. it may be the end of the road.

a minute of silence

norwegian summer

an oslo memorial

our answer to violence is more democracy

i was out getting an ekstra stor pose of Smash! when it happened and all i noticed was that, suddenly, everyone was standing around looking at their cellphones.

the photographs from the scene indicate a large explosion in the street between the prime minister's office and the ministry of oil around 3.30pm oslo time yesterday. a few hours later, reports came in of a shooting on the island of utøya, about 45 minutes away, where the norwegian labour party was running some sort of summer retreat for youth members. as of today, a total of 92 people are confirmed dead, over 80 of them on utøya. a suspect in the shooting was arrested yesterday and named by the police: anders behring breivik, from oslo and thought to have right-wing sympathies.

here, just outside of the city center, everything appears to be normal within reason. trains and buses are running, and the streets which were completely empty of people yesterday are now back to the usual traffic. many shops are closed to mark yesterday's events and, possibly, for security reasons. which seems only prudent. around noon, i went for a run up to the bomb site, only to find an enormous zone of the city center cordoned off and patrolled by the norwegian army. there is a surprising amount of broken glass on the streets.

the norwegians are admirably calm in the face of this attack. jens stoltenberg, the prime minister, had this to say:

We do not know who attacked us, many are dead and injured. Norway will stand together in a time of crisis, we suffer with the wounded. I have a message to whoever attacked us, you will not destroy us, you will not destroy our democracy, and our ideals for a better world. We are a small nation and a better nation. No one will bomb us to silence, no one will shoot us to silence. Our answer to violence is more democracy.

slow food and things that take time

pelle andersen is one of the authors of simremad og ting de tager tid or, (loosely translated) simmered foods and other things that take time. the recipes within are organized by the duration of their preparation. dinner at his apartment lasted nine hours. his wife went to bed around 1am.

(that thing that looks like a lump of bitumen is a poached pear.)