Enchiladas c/o U.S. Border Cantina

For dinner that Sunday, we went to U.S. Border Cantina. I ordered and drank a margarita. We shared chips that were good, though not as salted or warm as one might hope.
I suddenly had a hankering for queso as I understood it from T. and C.'s preparation, so ordered some of it for the table. This was way different, in color and obvious ingredients, but for looking so bland it actually had a nice little kick to it and actual cheese flavor.
I ordered a combination plate of one beef, one chicken and one cheese enchilada. Satisfying, if not revolutionary.

I May be a Hater, But That Doesn't Make me Wrong

That Sunday (the day after Miel) the T.s and my parents and I met up and went to Lucky Bamboo for dim sum. The addition of dim sum to its menu was covered by many a Nashville foodie, and positively. But, and this is just the truth people, the offerings weren't nearly as authentic or delicious as the many accounts suggested. The shumai looked awful. Nothing like the many other pork dumplings with yellow egg noodle wrapping them and a little nib of carrot centered in the middles that I have eaten over so many many many years. Instead, there were these brown, dried out lumps of grey meat with pale white wrappers clinging too tight around the middle. The shrimp dumplings made me feel funny, weren't hot and didn't taste so good. What can I say? If this was the best dim sum option in Nashville, I would abstain. Their fried options were slightly better but, come on, it really is almost impossible to fuck up a fried thing. I'm a hater. What can I say? Also: the tea tasted like moldy seaweed. Maybe this is authentic dim sum and each and every other place I have been - be it in Wheaton, Maryland, NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia or Seattle (oh man, Seattle dim sum made many of my earlier experiences pale in comparison) - is the pretender, but I think not. Vitriol! I guess my point is this: if you have stumbled upon this blog looking to learn about Lucky Bamboo as your dim sum haven in Nashville, go, maybe your standards aren't as high or your palate as snobby...but in case they are, be prepared to be majorly bummed.
After dim sum we went to the craft fair being held at Centennial Park. I was quite taken with the look of these wooden chairs. Something to tuck away in my head as I continue to dream about my own little place, with my own furniture and whatnots and whozits.

I Still Read

While I would struggle to remember what the last movie I watched in a theater might be, I am an avid watcher of movies and television shows of all stripes. But at this point I have gone without a round up of movies/television shows for so long that to do so now would be really boring for all of us. (Sorry Bones, Private Practice, Modern Family, Community, Castle, Lost and a host of others). While in Nashville I found it alternatively easy and hard to read a book or watch television. Television in real time weirds me out now that I have gone completely over to the Hulu/Netflix format, so many commercials. Anyways, here are some books I have read in the last few months. Making Toast is a book written by a man whose daughter died very unexpectedly. He and his wife move their life to their son-in-law's to help with the watching over and raising of their three grandchildren. It can break your heart a little.
The Secret History. I don't know what to make of this book. While I guess it is supposed to take place in the eighties or nineties, there seem to be historical inconsistencies and all the characters and their mannerisms, along with the setting, kept making me think the book was taking place in the 1950s. I guess it's a mystery. Or something. A thriller? A novel. Eh. I read it. I didn't not like it, but I just didn't ever care about any of it really.
I think I read the lastest Margaret Maron in about 36 hours. It was fulfilling in the way her mysteries always are. It has been more than a year since I have been able to read a Margaret Maron book, as I went through a number of them while staying with T. and C. in the winter of 2008.
I bought Chelsea Handlers Collection of One-Night Stands while in Nashville. It was relatively entertaining. It made me glad that I haven't had as many sexual encounters as she has and equally self-conscious that I'm not having as much good sex as she did. Too much information? Too bad.
My parents read this book (not at the same time) and encouraged me to do the same. It was good, though I felt that it could have used its narrative framework a little bit better in the end. Sad. Russia in World War II.
I looked around the house for another book once I finished City of Thieves and picked up Sarah's Key, shrugged, and started reading it. While the beginning is a little tedious (not in terms of plot as much as the fact that everyone and their mother knows at least one parallel from the opening two chapters, so having to wait for that parallel to be revealed to the characters is a little slow going), the actual story was quite moving. France in World War II. French guilt. Jewish children and death, death, death. There was a little redemption, which kept it from just being heavy. I finished it in a day. A rainy day.
Hm. What else. The other day I learned that the red tailed skinks I have been seeing everywhere are the mature form of a blue tailed skink, also known as a five line skink. They also might be males. I don't know. I have given up photographing them. They have some sort of really annoying sixth sense about when I'm out on the rock without my camera and even when I'm sitting there with camera in hand, just waiting, they move so quickly I still can't quite get the shot. You'll just have to believe me.

Neighborly Dinner c/o Miel

The T.s came to visit one weekend. They had been in the south for their niece's graduation (complete with D. having his first ever ice luge) and made the detour to come by and see my mother on their way back to Maryland. At this point she was still at the lodge and we weren't quite clear what the next step in her treatment would be, but she no longer had to wear her mask everywhere and could certainly have meals out. We went to Miel (I need to find the equivalent of Miel in Philly...an expensive French restaurant without a lot of pretense and with a good prix fixe). The amuse bouche of the evening was a salmon terrine type bite on crunchy baguette. It was to my liking.
We started with a sparkling Rosé, which was a little sweet...but I'm not really complaining.
The appetizer special of the evening was a soft shell crab dish. My parents split one, and I tried a few of its legs. Nice and crispy. I like it when soft shell crabs aren't overly breaded; it's a waste and a travesty.
I'll have to get my father to comment up on the red wine being decanted in this photograph. We also had a white wine I liked very much.
Before our arrival, I had every intention of ordering the risotto with ham, scallops and poached egg. But the entree special for the night was compelling to me, so I changed my plan and ordered the monk fish with short ribs on top. A strange combination for sure, but still good. I forgot how dense monk fish is and how rich short ribs can be. Would I ever come across the desire to remake this dish for myself? No. Did I eat all of it? Yes.
For dessert we shared profiteroles. They were yum, yum, yummmmmy.

And to end the meal, a dollop of fresh honey.
I insisted on a few photographs in the parking lot because that is how I roll.
It was great to see the T.s, neither of whom I have seen since last year's Preakness. Good people, the both of them.

Hates

I hate oil spills.

Salad and Lasagna c/o Pie in the Sky

For dinner another night, my parents and I went to Pie in the Sky Pizza. My father and I shared the Greek salad.
I ordered the cheese lasagna with one meatball on the side.
There was definitely a lot of this dish, and it certainly had enough cheese to please me. But, on the whole, not revolutionary. I once made a mushroom lasagna that I recall quite fondly. Perhaps I'll do that again some time.

First Ever Krispy Kreme

One morning I came into the common eating space of the 'lodge' where my mother was staying to have a cup of tea while she ate her breakfast. A man came out of nowhere (but proabably really somewhere) with a box and invited all of us in the room to help ourselves. This box contained a little less than a full dozen of still-warm Krispy Kreme donuts. I may be mistaken, though I think not, but I managed to live my whole life without trying one of these devilish treats. I now understand, to an extent, what the fuss is about. Crispy. Warm. Airy. Sweet. All good qualities. I can't imagine eating more than one. I once tried to read Rick Moody's The Diviners at one point in my life, and only got about 10 pages in. In those pages a character 's obsession and addiction with the donuts leads her to (if I recall correctly) know the schedule of baking so she can always get them hot out of the oven, and that she typically eats a dozen at a time.
I was feeling a little woozy after one. I can't imagine having two, let alone twelve.

Breakfast and Pho

Our hotel loaded us up with breakfast coupons, which we could use to, get this, have breakfast. It was an above par breakfast experience to many hotels in so far as they had hot food. A buffet provided options such as scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage links and patties, hash browns and biscuits. Where one might expect soup, there was sausage gravy, cream of wheat and grits. I did not avail myself of breakfast every day, but on this particular day I did. I decided to be a little creative. On a halved biscuit, I placed one sausage patty. I then topped the patty with scrambled eggs and sausage gravy. I asked the omelet man (who, I later found out, would fry eggs as well) for a little of his cheese, tomatoes and peppers and concluded the gluttony with two strips of bacon. I don't know if anyone else is disgusted by this, but I was...in the sense that it's ridiculous, not in the sense that it tasted bad. It tasted good.
That same day, I think, I met up with my parents, their friend H. and her son F. for pho at Miss Saigon. I came late, having been unable to see the turn-off for the restaurant, so everyone else had already ordered. I decided to go with rare beef and brisket, which was brought out quite quickly. Though I got my bowl in front of me with speed, I cannot tell a lie (blatant lie) and say that it was really great. None of my meat had a hint of rare to it, which was disappointing. Another disappointment was the quantity of meat (not much). The broth was fine, I mean you can't really go wrong with the basic ingredients of a pho broth, but it wasn't spectacular and certainly didn't make up for the disparity between the menu description and the bowl put in my face. One suggestion one often makes in my line of work is 'give this essay to someone without giving them the prompt that you were answering and ask them what they think the question was.' In this case, if you were to put this bowl in front of me and ask me what the menu's description was I would say. One bowl pho, well done steak and brisket, half portions of each. Which, as we have already covered, is not what I was looking for. The end of my rant.

Preakness Predictions (I'm Never Right)

My bets:

$2 Exacta box for the following:

6-8-12
2-5-8
and
3-7-8

While I don't like Borel's overly familiar use of the words 'honey' and 'sweetie' when speaking to a professional journalist, I can't completely dismiss his swagger.

Loves

I've found myself noticing things I love, or hate, a lot lately. And every time something comes to mind I promise myself that I'm going to start a list of these things to see what the shape of my small passions might be. So I'm going to put a few down right now because I've thought to do it.

Hearing frogs peeping in the ditches by the side of country roads on spring/summer nights.
Not knowing the names of birds.
Children sitting in my lap of their own volition.
Searching for turtles in the woods, and knowing that I won't find one (but that it is probably only three feet away from me). I love and hate this.
Fancy French meals with lots of wine.
Shirley Temples.

It's funny, when I was in Seattle T. or C. said something about my liking the outdoors. I never really think of myself as outdoorsy. You're not going to see me really roughing it when it comes to camping. I'm not a great fan of hiking ... actually, I think I could be a fan of hiking, I just get terrified that I won't last and that I'll be five miles into a hike and unable to make the return trip/disappoint those I am with by my pace. I no longer remember what poison ivy looks like. And yet so many of the things I love are experiences, objects or animals one should only find outside the comforts of their home. If I had it my way, I would sit outside and do my office work every day. And each day, I would be thankful for the birds flying overhead and red-tailed skinks rustling in the undergrowth (I swear I will get photographic proof of this at some point).

A porch. A stream. Some trees. Some plants. That's what I want. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Woodsy Wilderness, With Birds

What is this bird? It is red. Is it a baby cardinal? No? Then what is it please?
The nice thing about my parents' house is that it has woods and birds and moss and trees and things. After struggling with my usual camera lens, I switched to my zoom lens, which helped a bit with my desire to take photographs of birds and things.
The rock up all close and stuffs.
While there are a number of birds I'd like to capture, photographically, I tend to find myself inundated with blue jays and those red birds. There are also blue birds flitting about, and I finally got a pileated woodpecker yesterday. And I really want to get proof of the red faced/tails skinks I saw all over the rock...but they really, really make it difficult to take a picture.
Blue Jays are still way pretty, even if rather common.
And then is this a chickadee or something?

Risotto and Storm Weather

The deal in Nashville was that my mother had a room at Hope Lodge and we also had a hotel room nearby. So, either my father or I would stay with my mother and the other would stay at the hotel. At one point, however, we gave up the hotel room. I took this gap in housing as an opportunity to go to Sewanee. I also needed to get a few things done at the house in terms of airing it out and cleaning it up a little, since my parents hadn't really been there since March. The first full day of Sewanee was a Saturday, which was when I drove to Monteagle to get a few groceries and saw the apocalypse dog. Upon my return I made risotto with portabella mushrooms and garlic, and a side of steamed broccolini. Then I drizzled the dish with truffle oil and grated a little parmesan cheese on top of that. I will not lie to you, it was good. It was real good.
Later on I drove to Green's View. This was the weekend of the flood in Nashville. Sewanee and its environs experienced many a tornado warning and cloudy weather, but not so much in terms of epic amounts of rain or flooding.
But it was definitely cloudy and blustery, as these photographs testify. 'I do solemnly swear that -though lightly photoshopped in order to highlight the cloudiness of the day - I was a witness to the cloudy weather of which cc speaks' is what the photograph would say in court.

Randoms

My mother loves this video. I love her for loving it.

Also, who knew Supreme Court Decisions could be so amusing.

Dinner c/o Bombay Palace

Another night my mother, father and I went to Bombay Palace for dinner. My first experience had been very positive, though the lighting conditions had left much to be desired. My parents both started their meals with soup, which inspired me to try the tomato soup. This was definitely a little better that traditional Campbell's Soup, but not all that revolutionary.
My father and I split vegetable samosas, which were slightly unusual to me. Not samosas as a whole, but this particular kind of samosa. Or maybe not? I don't know. Instead of chunks of potato and peas, it was all very much a mush. Thing about all kinds of cuisine? There are a million different ways to do it. Duh.
Mom ordered the fried fish appetizer, which we all expected to be some sort of flaky white fish. So, we were surprised to find salmon instead.
I ordered a goat form of bindi bhaji. I wish I could say I loved it, but I didn't really. It may be that the soup and samosa filled me up, leaving little stomach interest for the main course. Or, perhaps, I should have expected the pieces of goat bone in the dish (this actually does seem like a reasonable expectation to have in retrospect) but I did not have that expectation and was not pleasantly surprised when crunching into bone when I was expecting meat. It was harder to find meat than it was gristle or bone. That said, I didn't look that hard and the few bites of meat and okra I actually did consume were nicely flavored.
So, not an entirely successful second visit to the restaurant.

Apocalypse Dog at the Piggly Wiggly

Pork Tenderloin and More

My mother was discharged from the hospital a few weeks back, but we remain in Nashville for treatment upkeep and infection prevention. While crowded rooms and children, along with live flowers and uncooked vegetables, should be avoided, she is entirely up and about, so when my parents' friend H. and her son F. invited us over for dinner, we happily accepted. We had drinks and dumplings on her back porch then went inside for dinner. She had a lot of great flatware. One day I hope to have plates that I chose on purpose. One day.
Dinner was barbequed pork tenderloin, cous cous and a cheesy squash dish.

Very tasty.
For dessert we were given homemade chocolate macademia nut brownies with coffee ice cream.
Thanks to H. and F. for a lovely home cooked meal. It had been a while for all of us. You sort of forget what it's like to spend time in someone's actual home after days of hotel or hospital living. Also, if you're looking for something to donate to or volunteer for, this could be something you might consider.

Salumi and Salad c/o Giovanni Restaurant

On my first or second evening back in Nashville my parents and I went to Giovanni Restaurant for dinner. This was the location of their last meal together before my mother went into the hospital nearly a month before. The olive tapenade and rosemary infused bread was a nice way to start, as was the wine. What was less ideal was the Maitre D's excessive use of cologne and/or aftershave. I mean, it was knock-you-over-the-head unavoidable, which meant that I'd be in mid bite or sip when my olfactory senses would be overwhelmed by his specific musk. Musk? I don't know. I just think that if you work in a restaurant, you shouldn't wear so much of a scent that it could interfere with your customers' eating experience.
I ordered the salumi misto appetizer and the beef and mozzarella salad for my meal. It was very dark, so instead of even bothering with faithful presentations of the food, I have chosen to Photoshop beyond recognition. I generally don't care for prosciutto, but this stuff was pretty good. The salumi/sopressata had a nice kick to it, and the one whose name I cannot remember, but had a sort of upscale bologna feel to it was quite satisfying. Chicken liver stuffed in olives was a little too much, but chicken liver on toast was just right.
The salad was way chunky, which is something I could get behind. Also, at a table a few feet away from us, the mayor or governor sat. Probably mayor? This was before the floods, so they were just having a great time.
I forget what the dessert was, and none of the menu's descriptions entirely synch with this dish. Probably some sort of ricotta concoction?