Saturday, August 29, 2009

Restaurant report

I went out to dinner the night before my birthday at JD Wesley's new place Encore which is in that Hobby Lobby strip mall on Monroe St. in Toledo where Poco Piatti used to be. We had oysters on the half shell for an appetizer as well as some duck liver pate. They were OK. The oysters were limp but after all it was August, not an oyster month. The pate was stiff. It came with crackers and bread medallions and some fruit.

For the salad course, we had a Thai chili chicken soup of which the broth part was delicious but the chicken suspiciously did not float and a roasted beet fennel salad where the fennel was nearly absent and the whole thing was overdressed and limp.

Main courses: grouper with tomatillo salsa verde that was overcooked to nearly mush and the salsa was a dime-size splotch of tartness. That came with rice and vegetable du jour as did everything on the menu. No side choices. No baked potato. Vegetable was steamed beans with carrot shards. Rice was a five-bite pile of plain blandness. We also had lobster ravioli with shrimp and scallops on the side. The overcooked scallops and shrimp were chewy. The sauce was unidentifiable but not very good. Sort of carroty.

I had high hopes for this place but it doesn't cut it. We were the only table in there so it wasn't as if the kitchen was over-taxed. As my dining companion put it, "We could have taken 10 people to Applebee's for that kind of cash and been as satisfied."

What kind of fine dining restaurant has the same side with every entree? I've had better fish at truck stops. The whole menu consisted of one pasta, four fish, two veals and three beefs.

Plus it was so dim you could hardly read the menu. Sometimes I will give a place a second chance but not this place. We voiced our dissatisfaction to our server over every course and on the way out, the restaurateur bid us farewell heartily, so I guess our comments didn't reach the kitchen.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Catching up

I guess all I'm behind is pix from Ribberfest, really. They have made some giant improvements to the park with real bathrooms and terracing kinda like Wheeling and they're working on more riverside sidewalks. I'm going next year. You should, too. We stayed at the Country Hearth Inn which was just fine for $65 and they had the free continental breakfast and it takes about 3 minutes to get downtown. It was Madison's Bicentennial so we got free cake and ice cream right when we got there. Damn, it's a great festival.

Here's Ronnie Baker Brooks playing the guitar with his tongue. That's all I'm saying about that.


He had come out into the crowd and they got a chair for him to stand on. He was worth the price of admission, as Amy said. Which is not saying much as it cost $20 for 2 days, and for that you got $10 in food/drink tickets and all the meat you could eat.


We stopped in Osgood on the way home and took pictures of these iron sculptures in a restaurant parking lot. Click to see a bigger version.





Here is the Amy Swinehouse pig I voted for in the pigmania contest at Ribberest. She has a tattoo that says Daddy's Girl.


Amy and I point out to Rolly that he could be in the rib eating contest so here he is waiting to start.

He was just happy to get some more free meat. He didn't win but he got a lovely apron for a souvenir.



Madison has a riverboat restaurant now. The menu was not very interesting but it would have been good to have a bev on their boat patio. That Tugboat bar place has been reopened as Mumbles but they didn't have their liquor license yet at Ribberfest. That walkway is STEEP.








Although this pic doesn't really bear it out, the crowd on Friday was much larger than in previous years we thought.

If we had been voting, these guys woulda won. One of these guys told us there are so many competitions, there aren't enough judges. You can learn to be one.


The music was overall very good although Watermelon Slim was very disappointing, possibly tanky. And both nights the headliners, Robben Ford and the Hollywood Blue Flames, were lackluster and we left early. The first band Friday had canceled so we got to see Big James which was a bonus.

Tonight Amy and I went to the ClaZel for the inaugural Weds. night film series which you can see a schedule of here. They showed the first movie ever seen at the ClaZel, Irene from 1926. It's of course a silent and Michael Peslikis played piano accompaniment. Which he learned to do back in the 70s when they were living in Greece and some international touring company was bringing a series of silent films to European capitals and he answered an ad in the newspaper to play along with them. He has more stories.

Weds. of Swamp week is the original A Star is Born. And Night of the Living Dead Oct. 7!

I have announced the Labor Day party which is Monday Sept. 7. Starts at 3, eat at 6, I provide meats and fixins and chips. Please attend.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Ribberfest

Here's the YouTube video of Ruthie Foster with Robben Ford from Friday night. More later.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Not overly hot like previous years

Cloudy today but thats ok. Madison ribberfest aug 22

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Great weekend

The new bush (see below).




The deck




Started with Rod's Collision at the ClaZel Friday night. With surprise guests!! Justin on guitar and Beth Apple on vocals. It was a good time. Dancing, drinking scotch.

But not so much scotch that affected a wonderful Saturday during which I did more digging in the back and I bought a variegated dogwood at Meijer for half price and now it's too hot to plant it. Plus I pulled a bunch of weird crap out of the raised bed. My tomato plants look pitiful, almost no foliage, but pretty many tomatoes. That bed needs some more enrichment before next growing season.

Had coffee on my deck both mornings this weekend. It is unbelievable. Like being at some resort. Got rid of the last boards and finally my heavy trash was picked up. Again have not mowed for weeks as we have had no rain.

Listening to John Nemeth Love Me Tonight. Man I cannot wait to see him at the Swamp.

Glazed the bedroom window to the north so I paint that and reassemble it next weekend. Oh, when I will be in Madison.

Plus it's time to start planning the Labor Day party which is oh four weeks from tomorrow. All the time in the world!

Last night Amy and I watched An Affair to Remember. OMG they do not write them like that anymore. Sleepless in Seattle notwithstanding. That announcer guy is Robert Q. Lewis, Amy. And they're both remakes of Love Affair. Which will be available for streaming on Netflix soon. Which I don't believe I've ever seen. Irene Dunne, who was Terry McKay, "even donated $10,000 to the restoration of the town fountain in her girlhood home of Madison, Indiana, in 1976."

Also I bought much healthful food, and bacon because it is BLT season.

I used this stuff Bona to clean the hardwood floor in my bedroom. It's amazing. Mist it on and wipe off with a towel. Feels good on the feets. I got it at the Ace Hardware. This after I moved my bedroom around again to get good reading light next to the bed.

Neko Case is coming to the ClaZel! Nov. 7! I can't believe it. She's playing at the Newport Folk Festival and Lollapalooza. And at the ClaZel! Plus Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek is going to be there Oct. 10.

Man it is like the Bahamas outside. NWS says it's 78 and 62% humidity but it feels hotter than that. Plus after a summer of nothing, it's suddenly hurricane season. So oil prices drop as supply is UP against the storm risk. Hasn't it happened in the past that oil prices go up because of the storm threat?? Kee-rist.

I looked at Mrs. Eilert's house next door. It is exactly like mine EXCEPT it doesn't have that dining nook at the back and of course it's not so fabulously decorated and it has no fireplace. The plumbing looks good and the furnace is very new. BUT my big concern is that if I bought it and rented it, I would be contributing to the number of rentals in the neighborhood. And if I bought it to flip it, I might lose. Plus no guarantee in any case that my neighbors would be good. So I will decline. And hope for the best in terms of new neighbors.

At least it's a four-day week this week and then two whole weeks and then A WEEK OFF!! Still don't have confirmation for Austin at Xmas. TOM

The book I got for free at GFT is The Mermaid's Chair by the woman who wrote The Secret Life of Bees which was made into a major motion picture. This book is not worth your time. Woman falls in love with priest or monk or whatever. Also the Garth Stein How Evan Broke His Head, not so good but too late for you wimmen who have already read it.

Waiting to read Loving Frank which I am on the short list for. About Mamah Borthwick who met an untimely end at Taliesin. FLW built Mamah and her hubby this house. Not so far away. Road trip? I don't know if you can visit it.

___________________________

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Deck in progress

It's down now but here's what it looked like last Thursday night.

Monday, August 10, 2009

JOOOOOOOOlia

We went to see Julie/Julia yesterday. It was really good. We were smiling the whole time. It was just two movies interspersed together: the story of Julia Child going into cooking at an advanced age and the story of Julie Powell, an ADD 30-year-old who never finishes anything so she sets herself the task of cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blogging about it.

The Julia part was delightful because after all it was Meryl Streep looking all ungainly but still girlish with the love of her life Paul.

I have a feeling Amy Adams portrayed a much more sympathetic Julie than the real life girl. Who was devastated that Julia did not like her blog. In the movie she says to her husband, "Is it because I use the f word sometimes?" Sometimes is an understatement. Read the blog here. Some of it you have to navigate by toying with the URL in the address bar because it quits linking after Dec.

She not only uses the f word, but she complains a lot about the dishes not being all that different from one another and some of them not being very good even. I am just jealous that I cannot concoct some blog idea that will get me fame and fortune. So that I can sit home in my pajamas and write or whatever.

One thing to keep in mind is that this was a blog in 2002. Which is about prehistoric in internet years. So salon.com was a cool way to get an aggregate of interesting stuff on the internet without doing a lot of heavy lifting. Now EVERYBODY blogs. You have to be way out there to get any attention.

Like my life. Not so way out there. Tonight I got home at 6:15 (that 30-minute commute is so over) and I had to go to Kroger (no bread) and even with a list in my pocket, I forget to get Mr. Clean which I need because I washed my kitchen floor with Spic and Span and it was so slippery, Fred called it a lawsuit waiting to happen. I did get vinegar which Amy says will take away that dangerous sheen.

Then I made corn tomato olive oil basil salad and guacamole. And watered extensively. And did laundry. And dishes. I got some coffee at GFT (a free pound! I was shocked I was already there.). I love that Java Pancoer and some White Russian. Plus I got a book, The Mermaid Chair, by the woman who wrote The Secret Life of Bees, for free because I have book credit. Wheee! Free shopping!! Plus bread was buy one get one free at Kroger!

I moved the bedroom AC to the west window so there's no annoying buzz out on the new deck (pictures any day now) and so I need to rearrange my bedroom so that I am not sleeping directly in the line of the blowing. Maybe tomorrow night. I cannot read in bed the way things are now. And we know what an important part of my life reading in bed is.

Plenty of free nights this week. It's very hot and humid now but this is supposed to abate as early as tomorrow and maybe the windows can be opened again. But not now.

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Heavy trash

I got this table over on Main St. in the block south of Curtis.



Will Kimbrough at the Pomeroy Blues Fest.



Me and Will



Nora Jean Bruso at the Pomeroy blues fest.




John Nemeth at Grounds for Thought. He was fabulous.



I only attended Friday night of the TunaFest with Nate and Rod's Collision and the Welders or whatever they were. Stubbs, Gus, Bob Manley, Tony, Joe, Rod, Nate, Fred mixed it up.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Deck progress

Here's a pic from Monday. The under part is done. Today when I got home, it is deck from the back door out about 8 feet. Deck party Saturday!

Good Sam

Sunday I went out to pay my Sears bill at the store and this little old lady is tottering around in the very hot parking lot. When I come out, she is still tottering around and not near where the cars were parked.

So I ask if she needs help and she says she can’t find her car. She had an ElderBeerman shopping bag and her purse. She says it’s a grey Toyota which I don’t see any of in the 8 cars in the lot so I ask her what door she went and then she wasn’t sure so I get her in my car (very unsteady on her feet) and we go around back and there’s her silver Rav 4 Toyota. I asked her when we were getting in my car if maybe we should call someone and she says, Oh they already think I’m crazy. So then she gets in the Rav4 and drives off, waving at me.

She told me about 8 times ‘You are so kind. I can’t believe you are so kind.’ Man, who knows how long she was out there tottering around in that heat.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Pomeroy blues bash on the Ohio River