noshing very very fast

I guess it wasn't truly brunch that me and my family went to at Nightwod since we didn't consume any booze in the morning time. I did, however, leave the morning meal on a crisp caffeine cloud. Servers refilled cup after clean-lined cup with Intelligentsia coffee.


7/100

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.

Spring Break '010 USA!!!!

Spring Break elicits a certain silly joy in me. Thinking about it makes me giddy - actually giddy. I think part of that is because of what it is not. Spring Break is not the school or work that harshly demarcate its boundaries. It is not the claustrophobia of winter nor spontaneity's summer. It is not a given, and I will not let 'em take it away.

Drinking Bicardi Raz and watching Finding Nemo on the big screen is not the same as being at the beach.

Drinking a cup of Metropolis's coffee as big as your head and chasing it with a vegan scone does not make you a savvy, self-deprecating intellectual. (though you will think very very fast.)

Drinking a shot of whiskey followed by a shot of pickle juice does not make you vomit.

What was not was amazing. Unlikely and likely combinations erupt in a thousand little bubbles of joy.

for when i venture outside the box

I work in a cubicle in an office full of cubicles this year at my field placement. It's strange, as years of Dilbert comics can attest, to work this way. People do weird things like cutting their fingernails or burping when seemingly isolated from their co-workers.

The company provides coffee and tea for its employees. After sampling all three varieties of Farmer Brothers coffee, I would recommend the Columbian. I'm pretty sure the blends for the Northwestern and French roast are full of robusta because they give me the jitters. You'll have to bring your own cream, but this is a good way to push through those chin-high modual wall structures. Perhaps one day I'll meet "Megan" who always has her organic cream appropriately labeled with her name in the communal fridge.

I like to take my time walking back with my cup of coffee. It gives me a chance to enjoy all the cat photos posted in each cube. Hang in there!

eating and drinking as sightseeing

My sister recently visited me in Chicago. She, like me, loves to eat and drink. The only activity that was a must on her agenda for her trip was to visit Kuma's Corner for one of their famous burgers. After the standard two hour wait, we were not disappointed. We threw back some PBRs, built our own mac'n'cheese (bacon & peas, please), and finally ordered our burgers which are all named after metal bands. Abby could barely talk after she bit into the Yob (10 ounces of beef, topped with smoked gouda, bacon, roasted red peppers, and roasted garlic mayo on a pretzel roll). Marcus and I enjoyed the Pantera and the Melvins burgers with equal enthusiasm.

I introduced my sister to Dunkin Donuts to get us going in the morning for three reasons. 1. Omaha is surprisingly lacking the D&D. 2. I love dessert at breakfast which is what those cute li'l munchkins are meant to be. 3. I really do love the coffee. What makes it so wonderful? How do they know just the right amount of cream and sugar to add? Ah, Dunkin Donuts, you win me over every time.

As soon as lunch was digested through wandering around and shopping, it was time for lunch and beers. Abby and I went to a Goose Island brewpub so we could sample some local Chicago beers.

Our two favorite beers that we sampled were the Willow Street White ("an unfiltered Belgian style wheat beer spiced with coriander and sweet & bitter orange peel") and the Matilda, another Belgian style beer with "golden sunrise color, fruity aroma, and spicy yeast flavor."

We decided to get dessert for lunch too (hey, it's vacation). Goose Island also makes some of their own sodas and offers dessert options of ice cream floats. We oohed and aahed over the grape-soda-and-salty-peanut-gelato float which tasted like a liquefied essence of an ideal PB&J.

On Abby's last night in town, we made a delicious feast composed almost entirely of goods from the farmer's market. We celebrated Abby's birthday at The Cove, a Hyde Park neighborhood bar, with enough pitchers of cheap beer to lead to impassioned arguments enveloped in love and certain hangover. Luckily, we had appropriate brunch plans the next morning.

The Publican's pristine pork products were well-accompanied with other important hangover curatives. First, they serve Intelligentsia coffee and wait staff don't want to see your cup empty. Second, they leave a big bottle of water at your table. Finally, their Bloody Marys are made with Tito's Vodka and a beer back. Yes.

I love to spend time with my sister.

a year of percolating

On one of my first days of my first year internship, I stopped at Intelligentsia for coffee. My friend Emily had told me I had to try their clover coffee. All excited about the new life of internship, school, and Chicago, I went up to the counter and asked for a clover coffee. Turns out Clover is a type of machine that makes coffee one cup at a time, a bit like a fancy-schmancy french press. The coffee brewed through it at Intelligentsia is amazingly flavorful and nuanced.


On one of my final days at my internship, I revisited Intelligentsia (at $4 a 12 oz. cup, this is a special occasion coffee). Waiting in line to order, I realized I've absorbed and become accustomed to the city street bustle. I have learned to better balance my work, school, and social lives. Moreover, I know how to order a cuppa at Intelligentsia.

you can go home again and/but you'll be older

On this most recent trip to Omaha, I found myself doing homework at the same coffee shop I studied (and held gainful employment) at in high school. Ten years later and still the same thing but oh-so different.




My sister is just about to enter her early-mid-twenties and is facing that startling, requisite quarter-life-crisis. She said to me, "I just thought I would be in a different place by now." To which I lovingly replied, "When they said that you could be whatever you want, they lied." Perhaps I come off as a cynic, but I think there's something liberating about limitations.

And libations.

My mom, sister, and I finished our mini-pub crawl at the Homy Inn, a small bar in Omaha that has champagne on tap. We split a pitcher of surprisingly decently good bubbly, got some popcorn, played pickles and listened to my mom tell stories about she and my dad before we were born. They knew each other six months before they were married, had their wedding on Wednesday morning, and honeymooned in Jamaica on $160. They were young and in love in the late 70's and drove across the country in a junker. It makes me feel romantic and nostaligic for a time I didn't know.


Before we went Homy, we lounged at the Surfside Club, an Omaha instituion on the banks of the Missouri River. Mooned by a boater? Check. Corn fritters with honey? Check. $7 pitcher of Old Style? Nope, it's PBR now but we still got it.

The pub crawl started at home with lunch with the extended family. My sister and I discovered the new summer beer-verage: Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy. It's like last year's Michelob Tuscan Orange & Grapefruit but better. Perfect to sip with ribs and all the Midwestern Memorial Day meal fixins. This beer brings a sunny disposition.

And even if you're not where you thought you'd be, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy where you've ended up.