Goodbye Greg (for now)

Ah Greg...



Man, I really really hate it when the hot guys on the swim team move away.

Especially when they're super sweet guys.

Darn it.

Greg and his partner Ron will be in San Diego tomorrow, I think, setting up house, establishing lives there. Lane 5 will be missing one of my favourite teammates (oh yes, I very much play favourites, I admit).

At least we had a night last week, post-practice (thanks Adam for the work out!),








over at KitKat to raise a glass or two and wish him a good move.















Gone, until he comes back to visit, or until we make it to San Diego to see him and Ron.

at around 5:50 in the AM, campus

Ahhh... the sounds of the city. I'm sitting out on the balcony for the first time this year, catching up on blogging, and below my is a cacophony of fire engines rolling east toward the lake. Hardly tranquil.

Here's tranquility: campus at about 5:50 in the morning. As usual, the bus dropped me off about ten minutes before the doors to the rec centre opened. The sky was fading from its earlier bruised complexion, and the day promised to be fine. I strolled to the side street alongside the centre and took some photos.










I've always been curious what the blooms are. I think someone once told me they were cat mint, but I don't know. Handsome bed of them, though.

It's a quiet part of town at that hour, unsurprisingly. That's what I like so much - the calm, the peace, the feeling for fleeting moments only that I'm the only one there and it's all mine. It's not a bad feeling.

And then they open the doors, and I have to go on in and work out. Spell ended. Morning well underway.

things I have learned (#42971)

In fact, I've probably learned far fewer than 42971 things in life. Either that or my sieve-like memory has dropped approximately 42964 of them. Likely the latter. What was I just going on about?

I have learned this much. This? Is wrong.

Kudos to catering at my university for letting me down. Iced tea, people, ICED.

This much I know.

small things of which I'm proud

In among everything on my mind and going on this weekend, a meal of which I was proud. I'm not always pleased with the food I produce, I admit - my own harshest critic all too often. Last night I put together a reasonable meal, though.

Dan came over - still in town from PA following a conference we both attended. Good company, and he very graciously brought delicious wines for us to enjoy. We all sat in the kitchen, and - following some snacks of cheese and nuts - dug into these little parcels.



Cornhusks are the wrapping for the parcels. Inside them are sockeye, one large shrimp, a bit of roasted poblano, slivers of yellow squash, and a dollop of butter flavoured with salt, lime zest and juice, and cilantro. I steamed them up for a bit (the tricky part - difficult to gauge doneness).

To plate, a generous spoonful of Cuban black beans, the parcels, a couple of corn rounds, and a sprig of cilantro atop. I actually thought they looked attractive. In the center of the table, I set a bowl for the emptied husks.

All in all, it was a nice meal. The parts went together fairly well, I thought, and the pale cornhusk parcels against the dark beans was a welcome contrast.

Dessert was an old restaurant standby: a brown butter tart. No blueberries this time, however. Mangoes have been in abundance in the stores, so I used them in the tart and swapped out the almonds slivers for pistachios. Dan was sent home with a couple of wedges, and I hope they made for a good snack for him today.

May 14

One year ago today Dad died. A battle with cancer, not a long one.

I didn't blog it (or even discuss it with many people) then, and I won't discuss it at length now. No sympathy needed, thanks. I just wanted a short note to honour his memory.

Every once in a while I have the urge to pick up the phone, call him, and just tell him how life is going. You know, it's kind of nice to still feel that connection. Not the easiest Dad ever (but am I the easiest son?), but I did pretty darn well by him in many ways.

Thinking happy thoughts about him as I wind down the week...

tired

Friends, I am worn out. Not a tough dinner to put together, but I am feeling the cumulative effect of the past few weeks. I think it is time I went to bed.

The dinner? I am pleased, not simply because CG is such wonderful company and because Conrad is home. No. The food was good, and the prep was fairly simple. Ideal conditions.

But still, I am yawning hugely and craving a long night of rest. This photo, then, and more still to come....

Night!

white truffle oil

Yes, that is half a Cornish game hen on that plate. Yes, that is asparagus. And what is that underneath? Yep, parsnip puree.

The star of last night's dinner, however, was the white truffle oil I drizzled on the hot hen and veggies.

Truly, this blog would be so much better if it could sometimes be scratch and sniff...

Frontera wine dinner

Yoshi's will always be #1 in my heart when it comes to Chicago restaurants so long as Yoshi and Nobuko are there. After that, we'll see. #2? Easy: Frontera Grill/Topolobampo.

I have been a fan of Frontera since the mid-90s when Dick and Annalee came back from a Chicago trip inspired, armed with cookbook, and spreading the word. Where did I go eat when I was in town for my job interview back in 2000? Frontera - no way I could miss that.

I wish I got there more often.

Look, say what you want about big name star chefs, blah blah blah. I might even believe you in some instances. But Rick and Deann Bayless have done so many things right with their restaurants, and the food is marvelous. I sometimes think that they offer better seafood than any other place in town. I can recall a meal of shrimp eaten at the bar that I wish I could have again and again. Heck, I can recall a lot of dishes there, to be honest - and cocktails, and wine.

Ah wine. Of course Conrad and I love it. We plan vacations around it, for goodness sake. Scoff and say that Mexican food is suited only for beer or margaritas. I'll drag you down to the restaurants and let Jill have a go at helping you appreciate how well wine goes with these dishes as well.

OK, enough preaching. Let's cast back a couple of weeks to the last of the 2010 spring wine pairing dinners.

The dinners include a demonstration by Rick Bayless upstairs in the test kitchen. The crowd comes in, everyone gets a delicious margarita, and we watch a master. One thing that has always struck me in his cookbooks his what an excellent and enthusiastic teacher he is. Imagine that in person. He made a picadillo for us
(mmmm... picadillo), but the highlight was his demonstration of tortilla making.






I've made tortillas before. Now, thanks to that evening, I feel like I actually properly know how. I am such a chef geek, I know.

All of us got a taste of the demo-ed dish,
then we headed downstairs to the Morales Room where Jill guided us through a meal. And oh, what a meal. Wines were from Peay Vineyards, and Andy Peay (gosh, I hope I got that right) was there to talk about them.

The first pairing was my favourite, featuring a sunchoke soup and a Chardonnay. The soup was so lovely. I don't say that because it had bacon, no. It was clean and tasty. Just right. Does that make sense?

Tilefish up next. Jill warned us that the fennel torreados had kick. Yep! Whoa. But in the context of the dish, it all made wonderful sense.

Beef ribeye. The poached egg always thrills me (it's how I order eggs for breakfast in restaurants usually), but I found the meat was quite exceptional. My third favourite dish. Soup was second. First was...

Dessert. Mango and maple. Cake, ice cream, maple "whip". What was that anyway? Maple marshmallow, melted and bruleed a little? I really do think it one of the best desserts we have ever had at the restaurant.

The wine pourings were quite generous - relax, I was fine the next day - and we had some extra dessert wine and enjoyed chatting with Mr. Peay. Jill came by often, Rick Bayless came by to say hello to us all (a special thrill to Mary Ann, seated next to me).
But really, it was a fine collection of people not previously known to us at our table. Conrad and I were in the middle, so we had the happy advantage of chatting with everyone and enjoying it quite nicely.


I tried to get David there on Saturday - too late in the afternoon, alas - so it may not be until the Foundation dinner in June that we head back there. A shame, but perhaps it's the infrequency that makes each visit to the restaurants such a treasure. Well, that and Jill, about whom Conrad and I cannot say enough good.

Go. Try wine with your food. Have fun!

they grow 'em tall in Virginia

I actually wanted to title this post with David's last name. It's become an affectionately humourous thing to do to refer to him by it, but you have to imagine that in doing so, there is an exclamation point. Hence: Xxxxx! It's a one syllable last name, and lends itself beautifully to this silliness. Alas, I don't put last names on this blog if I can help it, and so I shall not do so now.

Instead, let's know David for a few other things:

• height - they grow 'em tall in Virginia
• humour - the man laughs a lot. Smiles. Laughs. Cheerful. Cheering.
• hotness - I KNOW that many many men in the GLBTRT would looooooove quality time with David. Whatever that means!

Conrad is still in Honolulu (back on Thursday, yay!), and David needed a bit of a break from rural life downstate with Farmer Dave (his partner). A trip to Chicago, a chance to hangout outside of conference? Heck yes!

I met him downtown - he had walked over from the train station. Our first mission: Nordstrom Rack, where we'd successfully found shirts to fit his frame last summer. Fun shirts. Apparently Farmer Dave made some comment about David shopping with me and coming home with more embroidered shirts. That made me laugh.

We both hit the racks and the fitting rooms - David had a haul of 15 to try on. We found this one in particular that was just so bad 80's Parachute Club sort of gear that HE had to try it on. Lo, it was a woman's top on the wrong rack. It kinda fit him, but he doesn't have the bust to really work it.

;-)

David ended up with a few shirts and a pair of shoes, while I tried on several possible ones

before settling on a couple of short sleeve Brokeback shirts.
Size small. I just wanted to brag about that.

A late lunch then at Bin 36, a cab up to Boystown, more stores and ice cream, a walk home. Laughter.
A ton of it.

Dinner was at Wakamono on Broadway - we took along a bottle of Chardonnay and settled down to tempura and maki. No other big plans for the night - David wanted to see photos of BC, and I never mind boring people to tears with photos!

We kinda slept in. And then we kinda just lounged around a long while before bothering to head out, this time to Hearty Boys for brunch sitting at the bar. I wish the food were better - the menu reads so well, and the waffles looked great. Tough as leather and cold. I didn't mind - conversation was good, and the atmosphere in the restaurant was fun, too. Plus, at least I had a bit of bacon.

And then it was afternoon. David and I looked at more BC and other photos lazily before I roused us to grab a coffee and go walk over by the lake a bit. We were barely home after that when he was off to catch his train back to Farmer Dave, leaving me to hope that he can come visit again - Conrad has only met him once but would have enjoyed the visit a lot - or that I can check out downstate one weekend down the road.