ALA folks, hard at work, fabulous

I had to put that last part of the post title in there given the outfits that certain people were sporting.

;-)

I don't talk much about professional activities or my workplace on this blog. I think I wouldn't write a blog if I had to write about the things I spend several hours a day or more paid to do instead of the things I spend the rest of the time enjoying or daydreaming about. Truthfully, there are others out there who have given librarianship and ALA better thought. Find them, and reflect as you will. Try Lauren, just for starters.

A few people at this conference asked me if Conrad was with me. No, he wasn't, and it's unlikely he will be with me at conferences in the future. No, don't despair: all is more than well between us. No, we simply realized that conference, no matter how much we may like the host city, is not a place for him and me time. It's a place for my time with the librarians I've connected with over the years, and drawing Conrad into that world is not easily done. It's enough, I hope, that I call and text him several times a day and update him in such exhaustive detail that hanging up is surely a welcome relief to him.

I now sit on Council at ALA, this time at the very back in the Social Media Trouble Makers corner, as Aaron put it. While there, I am reading documents, listening to reports, following debate, occasionally venturing to a microphone to contribute, and tweeting and Flickring and FBing and e-mailing all in hopes of pushing some sense of the richness of conference activity out to people who might be interested.

Good people at ALA, and I wish I had photos of more. I have at least some, though, and not just from the Council chambers. Wandering the exhibits, I bumped into others:

Aaron
Kate
Matt and Peter (with me!)
Bobbi, Courtney, Alexia (plus shoes!)

Courtney, again
Dale
Bobbi
Gina
Aaron
the aforementioned Lauren
Nanette (ALA staff - those staffers really do so much for us)
Dale (and TK - yes, lots of time spent hanging out with him this conference)
Jodie and Courtney

And finally, the crew of us trying hard not to see, hear, nor speak evil...

best things I ate in NOLA

I'm going to say this: I dined well in New Orleans, but I was not blown away.

A case of going to the wrong restaurants? A case of choosing the wrong items? A case of needing to eat pork products to fully appreciate the cuisine here? I don't know. But I don't write this blog to disparage things (not often, at least). I prefer very much to celebrate instead. As I sit here watching Federer-Tsonga, a list of the ten things I ate while in NOLA that I would happily eat again. Oh wait, some of them I did go back for!

;-)

Grilled marinated artichokes at Rambla. I really wish I knew more about this restaurant. It's a hotel restaurant, it has vegetarian options, the food is quite good, the space is great for groups to gather. Why was it so very empty both times we went there? Ah well. We dined there twice, and this was a winner.

Even better at Rambla? The special: butternut squash gnudi. Fried crisp on the outside, creamy smooth inside. Only $5. Just yum.

And before we leave Rambla, the spiced Marcona almonds. Yes, I could see sitting around with these and some fino some lazy evening.

The first dinner in NOLA, TK and I wandered nearby to Capdeville. A loud little place, but possibly the friendliest service we had in NOLA (and I have to echo something I read on Twitter - for a town that thrives on tourism, NOLA does not have particularly good or polished restaurant service). Anyway, Capdeville proved to be excellent for two items, one of which I didn't get a good photo of in the dim light, the bread pudding. Topped with brûléed bananas and served with a rum caramel sauce, it was good enough that TK and I joked half-seriously about nightcapping with it on at least one other evening. The other item was our entree, crispy-skin salmon on a salad of curried lentils. $15? A steal, a delicious steal.

I had dinner alone last night, sitting at the bar at Sylvain in the French Quarter. It was on my radar thanks to a friend, Adam, who works for ACRL. Parked with The Rites of Spring, I sat a couple of hours, waiting out a mighty rainstorm, talking a bit with the bartender. Good food, but the thing I want more of? Fried eggplant. This was an appetizer. I am, evidently, a pig. But so very tasty!

We used to make the smoked salmon cheesecake from Emeril's first cookbook at the restaurant years back. It was a hit and miss thing - some people loving it and some people finding it weird. I actually thought it was best while still warm. Emeril serves it cold at his namesake restaurant, and his is better. Silky smooth, napped with a green onion coulis. it made sense on a hot day with a glass of chilled rosé. My favourite part of my splurge lunch there with CG, other than CG, of course!

I had never heard of John Besh before recent seasons of Top Chef, but now I've been to three restaurants that carry his name. I liked them all, but the one that I went to twice was Domenica in the Roosevelt Hotel. The second time, four of us had a very late meal of pizza to make up for a night of poor grazing on meager selections of finger foods. It was the first time, lunch with TK and Martin, that was most memorable. Two items for me. First, a chilled heirloom tomato soup with lump crabmeat. Cold, tart, some sweetness, a bit of zip. Good. After that came fried squash blossoms out of which oozed a goat cheese filling that was not at all too heavy for the blossoms themselves. I think, in fact, these may have been the best things all week here. The batter was impossibly delicate. I never imagined in a town that features to much fried food I would find something that was fried and ethereal. But I did, and I recommend it highly, and I wouldn't mind a last order before I leave town.

Oh yes, I dined elsewhere, and I will be sure to have another post with at least photos of some of the other foods. But ah, some things that I would encourage friends to try if they're down here. And if you feel a little jealous of me for this dining, well, that just makes me savour the memory of them all the more. ;-)

start of NOLA posts

I've had my good dinner, I've posted photos to Flickr, I've called Conrad a few times. ALA is done, and with tomorrow's flight, I will be home. Happily.

I will write more on the conference, to be sure. It's been a very good and productive handful of days, and I know I have put on weight from the dining. Don't look at me askance, you know how much I love to eat. And certainly, there will be postings on food.

For tonight, though, just quiet reflection in my hotel room on how very good it was to not only attend professional association functions, be part of the work of the association, dine well, shop, and see many colleagues, but also to get to spend a so much time with the person I consider my closest and best friend (other than Conrad, of course!). Yes, you've seen him on this blog before, and here he is again: TK.



We shared a room and popped into vendor functions and wandered about and went to The Banana and talked about the wedding to come and other things important in our lives and other things unimportant in our lives and sometimes didn't need to talk at all as we just did our ironing or watched Wimbledon. And now I'm left to think how very lucky I am to have such an amazing friend.

I will blog more on other friends - I do not mean to give short shrift to Martin or CG or others. Just a nod to having had an excellent time on one of the all-too-rare opportunities that I get to.

Noblesville open water swim, third go-round

I've really come to like the Indianapolis suburbs, it seems. I haven't set foot in the city itself since, oh 2001 I think, but I've now been to Noblesville three of the last four years. The nightlife? The shopping? (though I do not mean to disparage them, rather to plead ignorance of them in my singleminded focus) Nope: the reservoir. A great place for an open water swim, and so I sit on Sunday evening, somewhat aching, looking back on yesterday's race.

Back in 2008 I was part of a 5-person team, each of us swimming a 5km loop of the lake, that won the national title for our age group. Last year I went back to swim a solo 10km swim (two loops, of course), and took bronze in my age group. This year... well, we don't know yet. Results aren't yet posted because of some issues going on with the timing. Ah well, who cares? 6 Smelts showed up, four of us on one mixed gender 35+ team, and frankly, it was fun to do.

It didn't look promising first thing in the morning. Conrad, my cheering squad, and I were up at 4:45ish to be at the Morse Reservoir for the 6:00-6:30 check-in window. En route to the lake from the hotel, though, we hit heavy rain and saw lightning. Not good. No open water swim so long as there's a risk of lightning, and so it was when we got to the race site and I had numbers written in bold black marker on my arms and back that we learned the race would be delayed two hours. More sleep might have been nice, and I know some people did go back to their cars for that, but when I'm up, I'm up. A bit of a wait as the rain tapered and finally ended.

I was on a team with Ruth, Michael, and Liz - ah, we'll miss Liz when she moves to Dallas at the end of this month. Ruth filled in at the last minute, switching from an individual swim to our relay when our other teammate became ill (we hope she's feeling better quickly and in time for Pride!). Ruth also, I should add, went to a concert Friday night in Chicago THEN drove the 3-4 hours to the race site and slept two hours in her vehicle before checking in. More amazing? She stuck around a while after the race, drove home, went to Mass, then came for sushi and a concert with us. I am in awe. And in the end, we wouldn't have had a team without her. She deserves so much credit for all of that.

Heidi was there as part of another team, a trio of super-fast women. Chris was the sixth Smelt and the ironman among us, swimming the 25km. At least, we think he did. By the time we left, he had completed 15km, and we hope he made it the rest of the way. No matter, even 15km is a lot, and he had our respect and encouragement.

At 9:00ish, Chris set off, kayaker accompanying him.

At 9:30ish, the first wave of teams went off. Heidi was in this group. The rest of us were starting to get a bit antsy, wanting our turn.

They lined us all up to check us off against the registration list, had us enter the water to line up between a buoy and shore, and then bang! We were swimming.

One loop around one arm of the reservoir. Cool water, a terrific temperature that I wish the pools I usually swim in could stick to instead of being so much warmer. I started out close to the buoy, away from the crowd closer to shore and placed so that I'd be on the inside for going around the first marker. I was off, swimming well. Not bragging on that. It's the simple truth - I felt great. My stroke was feeling smooth. I was feeling the water, catching it well. I settled into a good, brisk rhythm of breathing that set up a song in my head for later in the race (you really do need something to get you through the swim when all sense of time is lost). Don't ask why it was International Velvet. It just was, and the chorus drove me through a good stretch of the second half of the race.

I felt fast going out, and I held my speed well. By 1/3 of the way into my swim, I was catching the tail end of the previous wave - they'd left about 7 or 8 minutes ahead of us. And I kept catching them. Not constantly (and there were a few from my wave carving their own way through the water faster than I was), but in groups every so often. It was great to have them ahead of me - something to strive for in catching them, and people to sight off of when I couldn't immediate see the next marker.

By the end of the race, I was a little disoriented. Either a bit of leakage in my googles, or perhaps some sweat from wearing a cap causing sunscreen (yes, I wore it - despite the clouds, it would have been easy to burn) to trickle down to my right eye. It stung some, and I was having trouble sighting. Also, there weren't that many people ahead of me. The last marker seemed too small to be a real marker, but I went for it, then kept going for where I thought the finish was. I wish I'd gone a little harder. I'm not upset at all.

I passed through the "chute" and continued on toward where a small group was standing up, wading toward shore. Mark from Indianapolis was there - he'd gone out in the previous wave and had just arrived a short bit ahead of me. Turning to look back toward the clock, I saw Heidi behind me - I'd caught her near the end and passed her. She and I congratulated each other and compared our experiences, walking in to shore to food and Conrad. Once there, we could cheer as Michael then Liz then Ruth all made it in. We even got to cheer for Chris as he looped by at his 10km mark.

I think we all were happy with our swims. Conditions were good, and I, for one, had no problems with crowding around me. My time according to preliminary results was 1:13:16. Not too bad. A minute slower than three years ago, I think but under two minutes slower than a timed swim at the natatorium at UIC where I had the benefit of turns and people to pace off of.

We ate, we waited for results, we left for Chicago and en route I slept a bit. At home, a good, long, hot shower was my first order of business.

It's a good swim, Noblesville. I know the timing is vexing them, and I hope they sort it all out. I hope they also know that now all of us really care too much - we just went for a fun swim with friends, our teammates and others. I'll keep an eye on next summer's open water schedule and see if a trip to IN is in order again. But for now and for once, I'll not be self-deprecating about what I have done. I swam well yesterday, and I'm simply proud of what I and my teammates did.

(for more photos, check out the set on Flickr)

Dinner Like No Other

I should be in bed already - a late night last night after a big big dinner (with wine pairings and more to drink) and an early morning today to go to the gym. I will be glad of sleeping in this coming Sunday, I think.

Enough griping, though - on to the food discussion.

I love Frontera Grill (and Topolobampo and even the new place at O'Hare, but I've yet to get to Xoco). Love it. Conrad is with me on this, and you can be sure that at the wedding reception one of the tables will named for Frontera. And Yoshi's, of course. But definitely a Frontera. For several years now - the entire time they've staged it? - we've attended the Frontera Farmer Foundation dinner. The 2011 edition was last night.

A Dinner Like No Other is how they bill it, and this year it was a clever homage to Chicago neighbourhoods. Great idea! A Frontera spin on some of the foods found around town. The menu promised much... and delivered.

Conrad and I arrived in time to line up outside for the opening, and as we made the end of the queue, Jill, the sommelier, came outside. She was exhausted from a long day and much hard work on the event, and we were sorry not to enjoy her company that night. We'll make up for that, as I'll explain in a bit. Susan and Andrew were right behind us - they're part of a group of Saturday lunch regulars who have taken us under wing and with whom we've enjoyed this dinner (and others) several times now. A fine group, and who better to dine with?



Bob was the ringleader, and we all split up as couples so that we could mix well. I found myself between Sue and Glen (down from Milwaukee) and across from Susan. Easy, fun conversation all night long. At various points one or two of us (we were 9 in total) would go patrol the silent auction, so there were plenty of opportunities for chat with others. More on the silent auction in a bit.

The food. A confession: I ate meat. I'd really been trying not to. I found through the cleanse that I really feel better confining myself to fish and occasional poultry. I'm trying to eat a little healthier. Last night, though, was a set menu with wine pairings. No beef, happily - that's the worst on my system. Instead, I just ate it all, made no fuss, and felt off this morning. Ah well.

We were greeted with a strawberry-rhubarb margarita, an excellent cocktail, a great start.

The amuse was an homage to Greektown: mini lamb "gyros".

First course: Thai fried chicken, in honour of Argyle Street. Served with a local beer, the Goose Island Matilda. Ah, that crispy skin! A bit of zing. Mmmm...

Next: homemade bratwurst as a spin on the Lincoln Square fare. I was taken with the creamy chipotle mustard most of all. That's not a dig at the rest of the late, merely an appreciation for the condiment. Served with a delicious 2009 August Kesseler "R" Riesling Kabinett.

The fish course was the best. I honestly think Frontera does fish better than anywhere in town. Garlic marinated Alaskan halibut with canneloni. An homage to the Italian neighbourhood on Taylor Street. The wine was fine but the least remarkable of them all, a 2009 Domaine de Bernier Chardonnay.

The meat course was roasted suckling pig on a beautiful mound of Iroquois white corn grits. I admit, the pork was so tender. This tribute to a corner on the south side was paired with a South African red, the 2010 Boekenhoutskloof "The Wolftrap" Franschhoek valley. Lovely. I managed to score an extra pour of that.

Dessert was a lemony chess pie with strawberry preserves and a remarkable ice cream: hoja santa-vanilla bean. In honour of Chicago diners, a nice touch. Instead of a dessert wine, there was a lemon cordial made with tequila na infused with basil and hoja santa.

And then we enjoyed some decaf.

We did not leave hungry, that's for sure. We left with a goodie bag, though, and better still, two silent auction prizes. As a table, we successfully bid on a wine pairing class with Jill. Hooray! I can't wait for that one. And as for the other, well, a present for Conrad from me. Of course it's not a surprise. Of course I'll enjoy it with him. A 1.5 L bottle of a Central Otago Pinot Noir. Not inexpensive, but isn't he worth it?

We were giddy boys in the cab ride home, I have to say. June 2012 - what will that dinner like no other bring us?

(all of the photos from last night are on Flickr)