Friday, May 28, 2010

what is the making of memories?

Tonight I had a lovely alfresco dinner at restaurant with a BYOB policy. After a few beers, a salty terrine, and the fall of darkness, we opened the bottle of wine I brought. A name so clumsy - Wrongo Dongo. It's nice for a $7 per bottle wine and I was going to describe it but why? You can find it here and here and here.

You can learn baseball stats or record producers or all the varietals of wines and hold them tight in your mind. But you know they are best, fist unclenched, shared. I hold none of that tight but instead experience just the sips. Why can I not conserve, preserve, then serve? What does the fleeting do?

Thursday, May 27, 2010

coffee for here, coffee to go: negotiating presence and distance at Valois

Finalizing final finals. Drinks of celebration soon to follow. In the meantime, a snippet from a Community Ethnography paper:

Before I left the restaurant, a pair who were both clearly together and not together came in. A middle-aged, bobbed blonde in pink was trailed by a wiry, dirty-haired Black woman draped in an over-sized coat with a large stain across it. In a croaky voice she asked the woman in pink, “Won’t you please by me a cup of coffee?” I looked down at my table to avoid eye contact and interaction. Then I overhead her saying almost triumphantly to the kitchen staff, “She’s gonna buy me a cup of coffee.” Without missing a beat, a Valois staff member trumpeted back, “Go wait outside, go wait outside, go wait outside.” Though taking her time, the bedraggled woman walked toward the door, talking perhaps to herself or to others in the restaurant along the way. Almost out the door, she stopped in front of a mural of an elaborate metal gate opening into a bright floral garden. Gazing up, she leaned into and against the wall with her hands, creating one side of an A-frame, as if trying push open the gate further. A Valois employee with a to-go coffee cup in his hand led her out the door. He waved her away from the building while holding the door open for stately Black couple both clad in pinstripes. The couple and the employee exchange a few words and shake their heads. Soon they separate as he goes back to work, they come into eat together and alone, and I look for a moment at the gate and garden mural.




Wednesday, May 12, 2010

we are total trendsetters

Thanks to my good buddy, Sarah Sherman, for sending this my way. Bourbon and Brine, baby.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

anticipation

Just last week, we had some of the first days of real spring. In the evening, I could kick-back with my feet up on the porch, sipping a tasty brew. Fat Tire's malty, caramelly goodness sits well with the shitty-pretty view from the deck of alleyways and, if you look hard to the left, the whatcha-talkin-'bout-Willis tower. On the porch, my mind and mouth are free to wonder beyond the sometimes strangling realm of social policy.



Once I finish school, I swear I won't spend all my time relaxing on the porch singing the praises familiar beers and letting my mind get flabby. Nay! I will challenge myself with the discipline of continuing education. I will learn about bitters and vermouths and liqueurs. Like a fool, I have overlooked these quiet sidekicks of classic cocktails. I too firmly fawned over the seeming heroes of these drinks - your whiskeys and gins. Yes, these get you drunk but that's reductive. What makes classics classic are the roundness and depths of these pack-a-punch drinks. Thank you, Longman and Eagle, for reminding me and letting me revel in your Vieux Carré, an earthy mix of Old Overholt rye, punt e mes, Landy cognac, Bénédictine, and aromatic bitters.