Pasta Fest: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Dear Readers, yesterday I went to Pasta Fest.

Pasta Fest happens once a year for four weekdays at Casbah, which is a favorite happy hour site of mine (when I can afford things like happy hour).  Casbah is one of the upscale Big Burrito restaurants, and I was frankly shocked to discover that some people on Yelp are less than amazed by their quality and service, because 1) I consider myself an extremely exacting judge of restaurants, both in terms of food and service, and 2) every experience I've had at Casbah has been delightful.  I mean, as you'll see below, I can always find something to pick on, but I was particularly amazed that some Yelpers were less than satisfied with the service.  I have always, always had the absolute best service at Casbah.  (In fact, all of the Big Burrito restaurants, even the Mad Mexes, have good service in my experience, and it's much to the credit of the company.) Perhaps it helps to be a "regular" (during the school year, I'm usually there for wine over reading or quiz grading once a week), and perhaps it helps to frequent the bar -- Ted and I tend to be bar eaters -- but in any case, I love Casbah.  My mother is planning a birthday dinner for herself there next month, and I think I will finally give the restaurant a proper review then.  Until then, I just wanted to share with you my delight over Pasta Fest.

Pasta Fest is pretty self-explanatory: a special menu of small-serving pasta dishes.  A few of the pastas are on the regular menu, so I'd recommend avoiding those, as you can try them any time.  (If you're curious, the regular menu items offered in smaller portions for Pasta Fest are the Orecchiette, the Short Rib Ravioli, the Red Pepper Casereccia, the Veal Tortelloni, and the Ricotta Cavatelli, if memory serves.  I'm not saying these aren't very good -- especially the Casereccia and the Cavatelli -- but I'm saying that you can try these dishes at non-Pasta Fest times.)   Ted and I made our Pasta Fest visit coincide with happy hour, to save some cash: $6 wines and cocktails at the bar between 5:00 and 7:00.  We ended up going through three courses of pastas.  My glee knew no end.  Allow me to present you with our nommings.

I am a sucker for a good potato dumpling. Not to mention some tender lamb.

Ted's first selection was Potato Gnocchi with braised Elysian Fields lamb shoulder, rapini, cipollini onions, rosemary, and Piave cheese.  I believe this was also his favorite dish of the night.  The lamb was tender and delicious, as were the gnocchi, and everything was well balanced, though I thought that the lima beans -- yes, there were also lima beans, though they weren't mentioned in the menu description -- were a titch undercooked (also I've never been a huge fan of lima beans).  Overall, though, this was excellent.

Fine Dining in America is having a "Put an Egg On It" moment, and I don't mind a bit.

My first selection was Egg Tagliatelle with pancetta, wee little croutons, Appalachian cheese, spinach, fresh oregano, and, of course, a fried egg.  I absolutely loved this dish.  The richness of the egg yolk alongside the saltiness of the pancetta and the tangy, herbal freshness of the oregano leaves was a wonderful combination, and the tiny croutons added a crunch that kept the dish texturally interesting.

Strangely revelatory.

For our second round, Ted picked Sage Linguini with pork ragu, grilled scallions, Burrata cheese, orange sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil.  This dish had strengths and weaknesses.  The scallion bulbs should have been sliced in half before they were grilled.  And the cheese was a mostly solid mass atop the dish -- it should have been broken into smaller pieces that would have been able to melt into the sauce.  However, the pasta itself was quite good, hearty and pleasantly flavored with sage, and the pork ragu provided me with a little revelation: meat sauce doesn't have to involve ground meat.  You see, I hate ground meat -- I despise the texture of it.  When it's compressed into a sausage I can cope with it, as the compression alters the texture sufficiently, but burgers and meat sauces and standard taco fillings are just anathema to me.  This ragu, however, was made of a tangy, tomato-y pulled pork.  The pork was tender and there was none of the grainy awfulness of ground meat!  I can't believe this never occurred to me before -- I am going to make such a ragu myself in the near future, I can assure you.

Skinny noodles: troublesome to cook.

My second selection was Capellini with goat confit, garlic, spinach, and Calcagno cheese.  It was a simple dish, and though not quite as interesting as some of the other plates we tried, it was fresh and well-balanced.  Goat, which can be troublesome to cook, was here lean and tender and very well done.  The dish's one flaw was the pasta itself.  The capellini was so thin that it just couldn't hold up to the big pieces of spinach and cheese on the fork, and it was a bit overcooked -- I'm not sure how anyone could fail to overcook fresh capellini; what do you do, just hold it over the steam of the boiling water for a few seconds?  In any event, I spread my little roasted garlic cloves on some of the tasty sourdough that comes with every meal, and was pleased regardless.

Certainly the best looking dish of the night. So cheerful!

My third course was Spinach Torchetti with chanterelle mushrooms, basil, cured egg yolks, and guanciale.  Guanciale, it turns out, is cured pork jowl -- yes, I was eating pig face.  And I'm here to tell you that pig face is delicious.  I liked this dish a great deal.  The pasta was eye-catching, substantial, and al dente; the chanterelle mushrooms were delicious and cooked perfectly, toothsome and warmly caramelized; and the guanciale was salty and chewy and outrageously tasty, though I wish it had been sliced a bit more thinly.

Kind of makes me wonder about the state of my own liver.

Ted chose, for his third course, the Rigatoni with Madeira, foie gras, arugula, and rhubarb.  My relationship with this plate of pasta was complicated.  On one hand, I totally get what was going on, and I think if I had been another human being, I would have liked it a great deal: the ultra-rich fattiness of the foie gras alongside the tartness of the rhubarb and the slight bitterness of the arugula, all balanced with the slight sweetness of the Madeira and the heartiness of the pasta shape ... this might have been the most well-constructed plate of the night.  Except: I hate rhubarb.  Rhubarb is the devil.  So ... where does that leave us?  Well, it leaves us with undercooked rigatoni, but that was a different problem.  I think in the end, it was a good dish -- it's not Casbah's fault I hate rhubarb.

Hilariously, Ted learned what foie gras is as he was eating it.  I honestly didn't know he didn't know when he ordered the dish.  So when he asked me what was so delicious, as he savored the rich little chunks of diseased organ, I explained to him about force-fed geese and ducks and fatty liver.  He renounced foie gras on the spot, mid plate; I finished the liver for him.  I also pointed out his hypocrisy vis a vis animal cruelty and the factory farmed chicken wings he loves so much at Sidelines; he looked chagrined.  I think Ted might be creeping back towards vegetarianism -- or, at least, more ethical eating.  Jonathan Safran Foer, you might be winning a slow victory in the Spiher Robinson house.

So that's your food porn for the day.  Pasta Fest is still going on today and tomorrow, so if you want to treat yourself to some magical carbs, there's still time.  Oh, and if you're curious about the wines, I can only speak to the happy hour menu, but I'd recommend the Casal Garcia Vinho Verde -- it's crisp and effervescent and perfect for hot days like these -- and they also have a delightful sparkling lambrusco on the happy hour wine list at the moment, and it's just fun -- I mean, how often do you get a sparkling lambrusco anywhere?  (And no, it's not that dreadful Riunite crap.)

I realize that there's some irony to me posting this right after I posted a blog about being broke.  I want you to know that I charged the whole meal and I regret absolutely nothing -- Pasta Fest comes but once a year, and you'll pry my noodles from my cold dead hands, bank balances notwithstanding.

Where Should You Not Eat? Let Me Tell You!

Sorry the posts have been spotty here this week.  I still feel kind of like shit.  I did have a nice day yesterday, though.  Friend Mark J. and I went out to lunch at Tamarind (and with my awful math skills I realized last night I ripped him off to the tune of $10, but I promise I'll get him back), and then we drank cheap wine on my couch.  Mark is good to talk to about things like I blogged about in my last blog.  He is a reassuring soul.  He also introduced me to Torchwood on Netflix.  Indian food and cheap wine and science fiction TV with good company is a pretty awesome day.

I did, this morning, write a restaurant review of Brasserie 33, which Ted and I visited, Groupon in hand, on Monday night.  It was pretty abysmal!  Please read all about why you shouldn't eat there here:

Brasserie 33: What the Hell?

Now I have to go to the grocery store and then buy Father's Day cards.  Nick is coming over for dinner, and I'm planning on homemade biscuits and sausage gravy, vegetable TBD.  I finally got around to watering the plants.  I think that all's going to be sufficient for today.

A Lego Ragemonster Stocks Up for The Trailer

Today was a laid back day. I met my fuzzier half in Squirrel Hill (where he works) for lunch at Coriander India Grill.  (Of course Friend Sarah and I have rated Coriander!)  This means that I officially ate Indian lunch buffet three days in a row.  TRIFECTA.  There is no better $8 lunch.  Ted always orders off the menu, though -- he hates buffets; he thinks they're unsanitary.  He might be right, but if there's one thing I love in a meal, it's tasting lots of different things -- guess who has a blog and loves tapas, y'know?  Ted ordered the lamb vindaloo, and I stole a little, despite all of my buffet offerings.  Here's the thing about Coriander's buffet: it's good (today the chicken makhani was the stand-out), and I like that there are usually lots of veggie dishes (it let's me pretend the lunch is healthy).  But there's a huge downgrade in quality from the food off the menu to the food on the buffet.  Now, since the food on the buffet is still good, this should tell you something about their off the menu items -- delish.  They have the best vindaloo in the city, as far as I'm concerned, and the chana masala is also tremendous.  It's just always a little frustrating that that doesn't translate as well to the buffet as at some other Indian places.  Ah well, it was still a really tasty lunch, and I got to eat with my favorite guy!

No, I never get tired of eating Indian food.

Other than that, I just ran a few quick errands to finish provisioning for the weekend.  As previously mentioned, we're going with Sarah to The Trailer, and though we'll likely eat out in nearby Ellicottville one night, in general The Trailer exists for drinking, snacking, reading, and sitting quietly in the air conditioning.  So I've stocked up on provisions.  We're bringing:

~ Prosciutto, pepperoni, and salami from Parma Sausage Co.
~ Taleggio and Humboldt Fog cheeses
~ Whole seed bread and wheat crackers
~ Fresh apples, raspberries, and tomatoes
~ Dried figs and mango slices
~ Mixed nuts
~ A variety of olives, and pickled peppers and artichoke hearts
~ Tea
~ Dark chocolate
~ Tins of smoked oysters and clams
~ Bourbon
~ Vodka
~ Two pounds of assorted gummi candies

This isn't counting whatever Sarah is bringing, but I hear she's stocked up on Doritos, which makes me happy.  We may be overstocked, but I like having a picnic of delicious, only semi-perishable items available while I relax in the wilds of New York.

Gummi bear cubs, cola bottles, Swedish fish, and fried egg gummis.

The gummis, by the by, came from The Chocolate Moose on Forbes, which has a great selection of bulk gummis.  Also while in Squirrel Hill, I got to check out this year's Lego contest at S.W. Randall Toys.  I LOVED Legos as a kid.  You have no idea how much I loved Legos.  And it makes me a ragemonster to see how increasingly, Lego markets itself only to boys, and only in really gender essentialist ways -- back when I was a kid, there were sets of Legos, sure, but it was like, Lego Town, and you built gender-neutral things like ambulances and little stores, or Lego Pirates, which everyone everywhere could think was awesome.  And mostly, you just had plain Lego sets, which were just nonspecific giant mixes of bricks, and you made whatever you wanted; I liked to build elaborate, multistory houses, complete with furniture and grounds.  But now Lego sets are 1) hyper branded with other corporate products, like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, etc., and I'm not saying those things aren't cool, but I think that corporate shilling shouldn't be ALL that Lego does, and 2) hyper masculine, with all kinds of like, combative wolf robots and stuff aimed exclusively at boys, which a) alienates young girls from the awesome experience of Lego (and suggests that girls can't build complicated, difficult stuff, which is horseshit), and b) alienates young boys who don't like hypermasculine combative war games all the damn time.  I mean, it's bad for all the reasons gender essentialism is bad, and it's bad for boys and girls and all gender points in between, and it sucks, Lego, it really does.  But the nice thing about the Lego contest is that you can't enter a set, it has to be something of a kid's own design, and it's remarkable how NOT gender essential the entries are, almost as if kids aren't ultra-delineated in interests based on their genitalia or something WHO COULD EVEN BELIEVE SUCH A PREPOSTEROUS IDEA.

My favorites are the Ms. Pacman characters and Troy Polamalu.

Anyway, I'm certainly not the first person to talk about this.  Here's one such little discussion, on Sociological Images.

Also seen in Squirrel Hill today were about ten times more elderly people than I've seen in months, seen by me in the span of about 30 minutes.  I'm not opposed to the elderly per se, I'm just saying it was sort of an odd demographic shift -- I'm not sure it bodes well for the neighborhood.

After that it was a grocery store quick hit, and since then I've been dicking around on the Internet, periodically telling myself I should read a book instead, while Floyd naps on the couch next to me.  Later tonight, we've gotta tidy up and pack, and at the moment I'm wondering if 4:36 is too early to start drinking on a Friday.

I know, Floyd, sometimes reading can just be too taxing.

Oh, and before I close out for the weekend, here are two things I missed from earlier in the week.  First, here is a picture of bees that I took at this Monday's farmers' market, where I bought some honey from the Fine Family Apiary.  Apparently, the queen in here wasn't doing well in her hive, so they replaced her and moved her to a smaller set-up to see if she does better; in the meantime, she's reppin' the apiary.

Bzzzzzzzz.

Second, we had a mildly fascinating arachnid encounter earlier this week.  I was sitting at the kitchen table, and felt something tickle first my arm and then my leg.  I looked down, and on the floor was a pretty intense looking black spider, who escaped uncaptured.  The next day, he was spotted again on a wall, and this time Ted caught him in a glass and released him outside, where he leapt away into the grass.  Some googling tells us that we had a daring jumping spider on our hands, which sounds pretty impressive to me.  I didn't get a picture of our actual spider, but here is a good photo of what he looked like.

He was a pretty intense little dude.

He was probably about the size of a dime.

So that's that -- enjoy the holiday weekend, and I'll be back Tuesday.

Death

Today started out ... varying.  On one hand, I've had a backache for 2+ days now.  My spine is my enemy.  I've had surgery on my lower back twice, and it and I are still in contention.  It's the sort of thing one just has to live with, and I do, but, y'know, allow me a couple of sentences to bitch about it.

But the day perked up when Friend Nick asked me join him for Indian lunch buffet, this time at People's.  That is two Indian lunch buffet lunches in a row, which is #Winning.  People's is very good, but variable: by this I mean, some days you go and it's good and spicy, and some days it's bland -- there's no way to know until you're there.  Today, unfortunately, was bland, though the food was still good, just too mild for the likes of me.  However, two things about People's that are always good: it's $8 even, and they put out delicious chai with the buffet.  Mmm, chai tea.  (Yes, Friend Sarah and I reviewed People's for the Great Indian Buffet Tour.)

Plus also I got to have a nice long chat with Nick, who is one of my best friends, and whom I always enjoy seeing and chatting with.

After that, I spent the afternoon reading Atonement by Ian McEwan.  It was recommended to me by Friend/Boss David, who raved about it.  So far I find it compelling, but also flawed, in ways that I plan to discuss when I finish it.  Wait for the review.

The big event of the day, though, was visiting Friends Katie and Randy at the viewing of Katie's father, who passed away very unexpectedly this Monday.  I felt helpless, and mostly talked to Randy (her husband), who is the sort to make jokes in the face of sorrow, which is also my wont.  I don't know what to do around death, in part because I inherited my mother's stolidness on the subject: they're dead now, what was there is gone, and so that is that.  But I realize that other people aren't like this -- which is probably a good thing, because my mother and I might be dancing the line of sociopathy on this one -- and since it's a friend, I want to help.  But how? I didn't know what to do with my hands, and I kept sweating, which I do when I'm nervous.  Katie said she wouldn't turn down a casserole -- it was all I could think of.  Mumford & Sons, which is a band I like but isn't necessarily profound or anything, has a song containing the lyric, "In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die."  Something maudlin comes after that in the song, but I kept thinking of just those two phrases today.  That's all there is to it.  I think the only way most people can live their lives is to forget, from moment to moment and day to day, that they will  some day die -- and even when you have it put in front of you -- in this body I live and in this body I will die -- you still can't actually embrace it; something in your brain turns it aside and paves over it, over and over again.  At least, that's how it works for me.

Take that, mortality.

After the viewing -- Me to Katie: "We're gonna head out, we're helping your husband be inappropriate" -- Ted and I got in the car and drove, literally, across the street, to D's Six Pax and Dogz, the one on Northern Pike in Monroeville. It's not as good as the D's in Regent Square: the pizza wasn't as good (though it certainly wasn't bad) and the service was indifferent, plus the entire place had the faint odor of raw potatoes to it.  But Ted and I ordered a large "Three Little Pigs" pizza -- sausage, pepperoni, and bacon -- to, as we put it, spite death.  Because what else can one do?  I've paved you over, today, Death, with pepperoni.

A kitten picture, since things were getting a little heavy, there.  Did you know Matilda is laser-equipped?

A Day in the Life

I did a lot of stuff today, though I'm not sure I have much to say about it.  Mom came to visit, and we went to Tamarind, Flavor of India for lunch.  Tamarind's lunch buffet, although small, is absolutely fantastic, and in fact, it is still winning my and Friend Sarah's Indian Lunch Buffet blog ... contest?  I don't know if it's a contest since there's nothing to win, but we've made it a point to visit several Indian lunch buffets and assess them critically and rank them, and Tamarind is winning.  So, you should probably go eat that.  Also read about it, here.

This was Round One of Indian food.  Not pictured: the goat I ate during Round Two.

After lunch, Mom and I went to the Strip, where I chiefly shopped for provisions for the upcoming Trailer Weekend.  Sarah's parents own a trailer -- though it's really nice, so I think "foundationless house" is a more accurate term -- up in New York, near Salamanca, and last Memorial Day Weekend Ted and I and Sarah went up to western NY and really enjoyed ourselves, so we booked The Trailer for this MDW as well.  If you want to read about last year's trip, you can do that here and here.

After that I dozed off on the couch.  Then I went to Casbah for their wine happy hour, where Ted met me.  I'm a huge fan of Casbah's happy hour: $6 a glass for really good wine.  Is it cheap?  No.  Is the atmosphere good, the service great, the wine delicious?  Yes.  Am I bougie?  Sure, everyone knows I'm a snob.  So there you have it.

SO MUCH DELICIOUSNESS.

While there, I informed Ted that we had two dinners for the next two nights based on my visit to the farmers' market on Monday and the Strip today: pasta with swiss chard and a Parma sausage, and stewed beet greens with a Parma sausage and some Mancini's bread and butter.  Which means one night between today and Saturday we have to go out.  He chose tonight, so we ate out at Point Brugge, which is one of my favorite places to get dinner in the city.  It's not cheap, but it's a good value for the quality.  We shared the cheese plate, with sausage (also Parma), which tonight turned out to be smoked meats -- YUM.  Then Ted got their chicken sandwich, which he loves, and I got the moules frites, red curry.  1) Best French fries I've ever had, anywhere, hands down, no other contenders.  2) The curried mussels are amazeballs.  Go there and eat them.  Also, excitingly, they had a beer I last had several trips ago at Pizza Paradiso in DC on the drink menu tonight, Saxo from  Brasserie Caracole, which I was super pleased to drink again.  Such a cute label!

That snail knows how to play the saxophone.

Now we're at home, and I might have a tiny Trader Joe's ice cream cone for dessert.  I love summer.

Road Trip to Nowhere, Or: Mmm, Golden Pig.

Today I went on a little road trip adventure!  Everyone has been raving about Golden Pig, the tiniest Korean restaurant, clear out in Cecil.  When I say "clear out in Cecil", I have to say, before I set out today in Marshall, my Honda Accord, I didn't have the faintest idea where Cecil was.  Honestly.  I'd read and heard people going on about Golden Pig, and they'd be like, "It's in Cecil," and from that I figured out that Cecil was 1) within relatively reasonable driving distance of Pittsburgh, and 2) ... *cricket cricket*.  It turns out that Cecil is south and west.  It's actually easy to get to Golden Pig, it just takes a while.  The thing I find curious about Pittsburgh is that there's the city, which is a city like any major urban center (except better), and then there're the inner-ring suburbs, which could easily be mistaken for part of the city proper, and then -- nothing.  Nothing whatsoever of interest.  Highways.  Trees.  The odd small town, but really, just nothing.  It's instantly rural, like, 20 minutes outside the city in all directions.  It's bizarre, frankly.  But so anyway, to get to Cecil, go through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, get on 79 South, get on 50 West, keep an eye out on your left after a few miles, and there you go.

Desolation.  Picturesque enough, though.

So wee.

Golden Pig is about the wee-est place I've ever eaten.  There are 11 seats inside.  The cooking happens in the same room as the eating, and everything is prepared fresh by two very nice Korean ladies.  Friend Mark J. joined me for lunch, and I don't know about him, but I liked the atmosphere.  It was homey.

There's a theme, you see.

I ordered us a "Korean pancake" to share.  I'm not sure what it was made of, though Mark surmised buckwheat flour.  It was crispy on the edges and had the particular glutinous consistency that I have only ever encountered in Chinese and Korean cooking.  It was filled with kimchi and quite tasty; we also got little dishes of kimchi and other pickled vegetables, which we nommed at with stainless steel chopsticks.  I mention the chopsticks because it occurred to me that I had never seen stainless steel chopsticks before -- I'd eaten off very nice, lacquered wood chopsticks, but never stainless.  Well, there you go.

Pancake and various yummy pickled things.

For our entrees, both Mark and I ordered the daeji bulgogi, which was thinly sliced, stir fried pork in a super rich (but not thick), spicy, succulent, just fantastic sauce, plus a side of truly delicious sticky rice.  Good rice is easy to make and common -- great rice is an art.

*Homer Simpson gargle*

SO FUCKING GOOD.

Seriously.  And my half of the meal came to $12.57.  Plus whatever I spent on gas, but, whatever, I practically never leave the city, so it's good to burn a little gas from time to time.  I listened (sang along to) Hot Hot Heat on the drive home and just generally was pleased as punch.

Home again, I watched two more episodes of Downtown Abbey, which I discovered yesterday and already totally heart.  Dowager Countess v. Mrs. Crowley -- I don't even know who to root for, because they're both so fucking fabulous.

Other than that, the day rounded out with MORE awesome food, because I decided it was Taco Night -- remember those Reyna's tortillas?  Ted always really likes Taco Night too.  

TACO NIGHT!!

Then Ted and I went back to work on the jigsaw puzzle we started last night, which he had picked up on sale last week.  It's based on a Frank Lloyd Wright carpet and we spent four hours on it last night and barely put a dent in it.  We went to work again tonight, and made a bit more progress, but we had to stop because ... well ...

We couldn't do it without him.

Chief was helping.  Poor little guy goes back to the vet for his follow-up appointment tomorrow morning, so he gets some slack.  By which I mean, lots and lots of extra love and anything else he wants.

Adorable Robots, Enormous Lambs, Brain Eating Amoebas

Today was a good day, right up until I became convinced that I was going to die because of brain eating amoebas.

For one thing, the last student issue of the term was resolved via email, which means that the term is officially over.  Also, I finally heard from Chief's vet, and his spinal tap was clear, so it's really probably Idiopathic Vestibular Disease that's bothering him, and God willing, he'll be basically OK in a little bit.

"You can't see me."

For another thing, today is my sacramental anniversary. Four years ago, on the leap day, February 29, Ted and I eloped to the courthouse.  He had proposed to me over the New Year's holiday in 2008, and we had figured we'd have a cheap but regular wedding.  But then I got a job with health insurance, which Ted hadn't had for himself in like, five years.  So we were eating lunch together downtown on a Wednesday, and I was like, "Well, as soon as we're married, you can go to the doctor's," and he was like, "Let's get married."  So we walked up to the courthouse and applied for a marriage license.  I called Judge Alan Hertzberg, whose election campaign I'd volunteered for, and asked if he could marry me that week -- the soonest legally possible day was that Friday.  His office was like, yeah, sure.  Turns out that Friday was February 29th.  So we went up that day and got married.  You can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnMAbUxMFPk

But I'm Catholic, so, y'know, we still weren't married in the eyes of Jesus, or whatever.  Point is, we had a wedding mass and a kickass party the next year, on May 8th.  So, five anniversaries in four years: I'm a genius.

But then I got some tap water up my nose, and I'm a little worried I'm going to get brain eating amoebas.  I got water up my nose because I was washing up in the sink, because our roof is leaking into our bathtub -- thank the god of small favors! -- and I don't think it's entirely clean, y'know?  And it was raining like the dickens today, and I didn't want to take a shower in the roof/attic drippings.  But if you look into brain eating amoebas, you'll see that tap water up your nose can be a very dangerous thing, so.  (I have the same hysterical fears about rabies.  No I don't know why.)

But before I die in 1-14 days, I got the most awesome anniversary/birthday present ever from Ted.  A Keepon!  Here's the strange thing: I'm good friends with a girl (Sarah) who dated the roommate of the guy who invented Keepon.  But even though I was in that house a number of times, I never got to see Keepon.  This irked me to no end.

But then Ted, the Best Husband Ever, bought me a Keepon.

KEEPON.

Please, look how amazing Keepon is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g-yrjh58ms

Oh, and also he took me out to dinner tonight, to Casbah!  Look at this damn lamb shank!

With polenta and English peas.  YUM.

I thought lambs were tiny.  Sheesh.  Anyway, it's been a good day, and we're going to finish it off with $6 sparkling wine, and if I die in 1-14 days ... well, I told you so.

Today I Ate Curry and Watched Super Hero Movies

So remember how I talked about all of those summer projects I intend to undertake?  I didn't start any of them today.  And I might as well tell you that I'm not going to start any of them by the end of the week, either.  I've got so much on my plate, you see.  Ahem.

Today my mother came to visit.  I like seeing my mom, but whatever my usual routine is, her visits tend to disrupt them, since they're all-afternoon affairs.  Still, the day was "productive" in its own way.  For one thing, we tried a new Thai place.  I live a few blocks away from Pusadee's Garden, which has the best Thai in the city, and so despite my love of Thai food (I've even worked on cooking it myself, inspired by Sarah), it's hard as hell to get me to try new Thai.  Frankly, it's more than that -- I'm a creature of habit. What can I say, I take comfort in knowing what to expect.

Anyway, we went to The Smiling Banana Leaf in Highland Park.  The fresh spring roll was good, but not as good as the ones at Tram's; the green curry was OK, but not as good as Pusadee's.  The Shrimp Red Chili, though, was very good.  I'm not sure it's fair to review a restaurant based on one visit, so consider this just first impressions -- I wanna go back to try their massaman curry, which I'll likely end up doing, since Pusadee's has decided it's only open for lunch on the weekends now.

Look, it's what I had for lunch today. Most of the photos on my phone are of food and cats.

After that Mom and I watched Captain America and Thor.  Neither of us had seen the captain, and Mom hadn't seen Thor; tomorrow I'm going to watch The Hulk, which I haven't seen, and maybe revisit the Iron Mans, and all of this is in preparation to go see The Avengers.  I liked Captain America; man, we Americans never get tired of killing Nazis, do we?  Even seventy years later!  Probably because all of our wars since have been tragicomic misadventures in Red Scare hysteria or neocon overcompensation.  But I digress.

Seeing Thor again, I was struck by the same thing that struck me the first time watching it, which was (Spoiler Alert!) the way Loki gets short shrift.  Or actually, what I really want to ask is, why do we hate Clever?  From the beginning of the movie, the character of Loki is set up to be a diplomat and a smooth talker -- "What's the matter, that silver tongue of yours turn to lead?" another character taunts him -- a soft-spoken and clever man.  His godly power involves making false copies of himself.  Of course, by the end, he turns out to be a schemer, a betrayer, a manipulator.  (And the movie does everything it can to make you forget that his father has lied to him his entire life, concealed the truth of his identity, all the while favoring Thor in little soul-destroying ways because for reasons that Loki wasn't made privilege to and are not his fault, the benighted dark-haired brother of Thor can't be allowed to sit on the throne of Asgard.  Because mulling on that might make you, the viewer, feel bad for Loki.)

Now, Thor's got character faults: he's arrogant, short sighted, and a bully.  Of course, by the end of the film lessons are learned and he becomes a noble, thoughtful leader.  But let's look at how this is set up: we've got a big, brash, handsome, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, muscular, super-white guy who's Got Lessons to Learn but turns out to be the hero who makes his father proud in the end.  We've also got a slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed, quiet young man who's thoughtful, cunning, and clever, who's willing to deceive to win.  Put aside the plot -- we already know who we're supposed to root for.

But why?  Why isn't being clever, thoughtful, and cunning a virtue?  Why aren't we on the side of the guy who can talk his way out of trouble instead of having to hit everyone with a giant hammer?  Well, there's a lot of reasons why.  My point is to invite you to think of what it says about us that this is the case.

I'd also invite you to think about what it says about us that the hero is a big ol' Aryan and the secret villain is a little dark guy.

Anyway.

After all that it was burritos for dinner.  Tomorrow I'm going to watch The Hulk -- and then I have An Event.  More on that later.  Then Friday is a big traumatic day for me and my kitty Chief.  Chief is going to the kitty neurologist.  More on that later, too.

Wee little Chief. Last time I saw a neurologist it cost $50,000. Let's see what Chief's charges.