Another Great Show...

On Thursday night, Stanley and I hit the Royale Nightclub in Boston for an awesome show from The Walkmen. AA Bondy were the main opening act and were pretty kick-ass, but The Walkmen were fan-freaking-tastic.

Steph’s Visit: Day Four

Monday started with a short (~6 block) trip down to the Waltham commuter rail station. This was my first time on the commuter rail, and I have to say I pretty much love it. 15-20 minutes gets you to Porter Square or North Station, after which you can get anywhere in Boston without having had to deal with a moment of traffic. Awesome. We were headed into the city to go on a duck boat tour, so thats how the late-morning was spent.
It wasn’t a bad way to show someone this beautiful city, and a good time was had by all. People quacked, kids were adorably excited, and many pictures were taken.
After the tour ended, we hopped on the T to head back to Faneuil Hall for lunch.
We weren’t sure where at the hall we’d end up when we started, but soon discovered that we were both craving a nice hot bowl of spicy noodles and headed straight to Wagamama. I have the Wagamama cookbook for some reason, but had never been to one of their restaurant locations. As we discovered on Monday, that was a shame.
We started with Duck Gyoza, which were incredibly moist and flavorful with a nice anise-y note in the background. Totally awesome.
We ordered basically the same soup (Kare Lomen), which features a spicy coconut-based broth. Steph went with chicken,
I went with grilled shrimp,
and we were both very very happy campers.
Lunch was followed by a trip to my old stomping grounds at MIT. The campus was much more beautiful than I remember it being, even if the dome was being repaired (thus preventing Steph from getting the all important Steph-standing-in-front-of-the-dome shot).
From there it was down the road to what is widely considered a “safety school,” which happens to feature a more traditionally beautiful campus itself.
Then it was home to watch the bunnies be adorable
and prep The World’s Greatest Sandwich (Chicken, Avocado, and Tomato Wraps).
Thus ended the first Boston leg of this vacation.

Steph’s Visit: Day Two

So, Thursday night was absolutely gorgeous, and Friday at the Cape featured a bit of storminess in the air but nothing that could genuinely be referred to as “bad weather,” but the forecast all along had been predicting a rainy Saturday, and the weather gods did not disappoint. This was exactly the kind of weather I love, but doesn’t make for good touristy activities, so we spent a large portion of the day grocery shopping, cooking, and eating. Our first stop was Russo’s, which I have raved about here many times before. Steph snapped a few pictures of the gorgeous produce on display, and agreed that it is the most awesome produce store ever (I may be paraphrasing that one).
After our grocery quest took us to a couple more stores, we found ourselves at 1:30pm and in need of some lunch. With a fair amount of dinner-cooking still ahead of us, we decided to go out for lunch and stopped at one of my favorite places in the neighborhood: Watch City Brewing Company. We ordered a fried artichoke heart with garlic aioli appetizer:
which was pretty darned tasty. I realize this is a weird thing to praise, but the BrewCo is really good at frying things. Always perfectly crispy… Never greasy… This is an important skill for a brew pub kitchen to master, and they have done so. I ordered the Lamb Burger with Feta Spread (as I do almost every time I go there) and, as it has been every time since the first time (when it was a bit over-cooked) it came perfectly medium-rare, juicy, and super-delicious.
Steph went with their burger with bacon and cheddar, and was impressed by it as well. A big, juicy, flavorful burger. Who can complain?
While out on our grocery extravaganza, we once again picked up a couple new pets. Their names were Bob and Mr. Pinchy.
We didn’t introduce them to Pedro and Rico like we did with our last new pets, though. Pedro still has a betrayed look in his eyes, as if he’s wondering what happened to his new friend Mr. Pinchy and he suspects we had something to do with it… Anyway, Steph wanted a classic Clam Bake, but I feel like every component of a classic Clam Bake is better cooked individually (and Steph isn’t a potato fan), so this is what we ended up with:
Grilled corn. Clams steamed in shallots, garlic, and wine. A couple lobsters cooked Emily-style. A few slices of baguette for soaking up yummy sauce from the clams. I don’t think I really need to tell you that it was the bomb.

What I Did Several Days Ago...

Long time, no post... Last work week was pretty rough for assorted reasons, but ended on a definite high note with a trip down to Bank of America Pavilion on Friday night to see Andrew Bird in concert. This was actually a really cool open-air venue. I'll definitely have to check out more shows there in the future...

So, I'd seen Andrew Bird once before (in Melbourne), when it was just him and his 4 instruments on stage. This time he had his drummer/homie Martin Dosh, a bass player, and a guitar player with him, but he still played several instruments for us. Before I get carried away talking about his awesomeness, I should mention that the opening band was Calexico and they were really quite awesome as well. They started pretty mellow, but picked up energy as the crowd trickled in. They have a really cool vibe, and I would probably pay to see them on purpose, so it was a cool treat to get them as an opening act. They also came up on stage for the last 4 tracks of Andrew Bird's set, meaning there were about 10 different musicians up there rocking out together. Good stuff. Calexico pictured below... (All of my Andrew Bird pictures were blurry, but note our proximity to the stage...)

Andrew Bird was absolutely amazing. He's so freaking talented, it blows my mind when see him in action. (I also suspect that he is the reason I seem to find tall, scrawny guys with slightly odd-looking faces ridiculously attractive...) He kills me... Aside from his amazing voice, ridiculous whistling prowess, crazy violin skills, and guitar-playing ability, the guy is a fanatastic songwriter and is absolutely charming and hilarious when he talks to the crowd. I heart him. (And, since he chose to do a second encore, I choose to believe that he hearts me, at least in my member-of-a-crowd-of-obsessed-fans capacity, too...) Here's a music video of one of my favorite songs of his, for the uninitiated:

We've been having pretty nasty weather around here lately. It's been raining/misting on and off, but the temperature is too high for that to be pleasant. Instead the air is super-thick and muggy and driving me crazy. I don't remember June in Boston being this bad, but that may be because August is so horribly hot and humid that it makes June seem pleasant by comparison. For the record, I can handle heat (with a bit of whinging), but I really cannot handle humidity... at all... This is why there are now 4 air conditioners in my 5-room apartment. (I won't be installing one in the bathroom.) On Sunday I broke down and bought an air conditioner for my kitchen. I'd been putting this off because of the stupid casement windows that don't let you install window units, but the nice cool air from the rest of my place doesn't circulate into the kitchen at all, which makes cooking pretty unpleasant and makes the bunnies sad and lethargic (although I may be projecting there)... Because of the stupid casement windows, I had to buy a portable unit and rig a venting system using plexiglass, duct tape, and a couple hours of cutting said plexiglass with the $4 tool they sell for such things (below, left)... I'll probably come up with something prettier to replace the duct tape later, but for now it's functional and behind a curtain (below, right) most of the time anyway, so I'll call it good...

After spending most of the afternoon dealing with that, I decided to grill up a nice summer dinner even though it was dreary, muggy, and sprinkling outside. Corn was $6/dozen at Russo's, and was ridiculously delicious despite the fact that it's often not in season here for a couple more weeks. I made a ginger "BBQ" sauce for pork tenderloins, grilled off the pork and some scallions, and grilled off the corn for use in my "Grilled Creamed Corn" which is actually really healthy (made with milk, not cream) and combines the deliciousness of basil and shallots with the grilled corn to make a perfect summer side dish. I will post the recipe at my other blog one of these days, because it's deifnitely one of my favorites. Anyway, here's how things turned out:This week has been crazy-hectic at work (thus not managing to post anything until Thursday) in preparation for leaving for Portland tomorrow after work. It will be awesome to have a bit of vacation and to get to see Stanley and Alicia (visiting from Dubai), as well as Max, Midge, and all my other Portland homies who don't have clever screen names...

Wine Tasting, a Concert, and a Programming Note

I'm quite the bad blog-poster lately... Way back last Sunday I had a little wine-tasting get-together as a preliminary birthday celebration (in an effort to stretch my birthday out for as long as possible, and also to be able to invite some people who I wouldn't be able to invite to my limited-seating birthday dinner the next weekend). We went with Syrah as a theme this time and grilled up some lamb kofta kabobs (pretty much the spread I wrote about here) along with some awesome meze... all of which I forgot to take pictures of. The Syrah tasting was a much more successful venture quality-wise than the Pinot tasting had been. Terre Rouge from central California was the winner, although all but one (I'm looking at you, random Spanish Syrah) were quite drinkable.
On Wednesday I headed back down to the House of Blues to see Jenny Lewis. I wish she'd done a bit more of her acoustic stuff (in part because it was awesome when she did it, and in part because we were seated very very close to the speakers and her acoustic songs were less deafening...), but overall I really enjoyed the show, while not being particularly blown away by it...
Finally, a quick programming note: Weekly Bunnies is taking the week off, and will return next week as Fortnightly Bunnies... I'm thinking less than half of my posts on this nominally food-centered blog should be about how cute my rabbits are...

Worst. Concert. Ever.

I don't think I can post about how bad the TV on the Radio concert on Thursday was without spewing a lot of profanity (I'm still working through the anger and hostility towards the band that the show filled me with) so I will just post this picture and leave it at that...

I sort of hate TV on the Radio now.

Awesomeness Personified

I went to see The National in concert at House of Blues on Saturday night with my friend Sarah, and they totally rocked my world. I have loved this band for a while, but I was still surprised by how hard they rocked the live show. The band sounded amazing, and Matt Berninger (primary songwriter and lead vocals) was working this quirky, self-deprecating, wine-swilling, tortured-artist vibe that killed me... It was just ridiculously freaking awesome. I don't really know how to properly put it into words...
Above are my camera-phone pictures from the show... taken with my phone's truly pathetic resolution. (The band was much closer in person, as well as being less pixelated...) The picture on the bottom right is an attempt to show the piano/keyboard guy working his accordion. This was my first time seeing a rock accordion, and I hope it is not my last. They were also sporting a horns section, and the occasional lead-guitar-goes-over-to-be-the-second-piano-player situation. I find I prefer live shows from bands with a bit of instrumental diversity. And, damn... I could listen to the lead singer all day. Which, in fact, I pretty much did today. You know it was a good show when the first thing you do is go home and listen to the albums every chance you get... and spend the rest of the day singing the songs in your head... Just: wow.

Even having had to pay the extra $25 for baseball-game-day parking rates (HoB is across the street from Fenway and apparently there was a game going on) wasn't an issue after this show... They played most of the tracks from Boxer, a lot off of Alligator (saving a seriously awesome rendition of Mr. November for the encore, as I sort of suspected they would), and also sang a few new tracks from the album which will be released "tomorrow" (the metaphorical "tomorrow," that is...) and which may or may not be called "How the Leprechauns Died." I can't wait...

Moving? Done.

After spending 5-6 hours per night after work (starting Tuesday) every night and all day Saturday, I am officially moved in here in Waltham. I am absolutely in love with my apartment. Moving in here has made it clear to me how different my attitude was in Melbourne (where I knew things were short-term). Here, where I have a long-term job with what is quite possibly the best employer EVER, my apartment feels much more like a real home rather than a place I'm just trying to furnish enough to get by. My place is cozy, but it's very "me." On Friday I woke up feeling light-headed and nauseous (I had been coming down with something for a few days prior to this), and ended up leaving work before lunch to take a sick day. I worked on unpacking as much as I could in the evening, but decided to stop by 7pm and just get some yummy food delivered, watch crappy TV on my computer, and try to recover. Every night before this I had come home from work, spent hours unpacking, then grabbed a quick bite at around 11pm before heading straight to bed, waking up early for work, and repeating the scenario the next day. To actually enjoy a leisurely dinner here followed by a good night's sleep (before once again facnig my giant pile of boxes) was pretty freaking awesome.

There are actually 51 different restaurants that I can order from online for delivery to my apartment, which is both awesome and dangerous. For my first night here I went with Thai food from Tom Can Cook. Overall I would say it was a good experience, with one exception. I ordered Tom Yam Soup, Crab Rangoon, and Massaman Chicken Curry. The soup was the exception to the goodness. I ordered it with shrimp, but it came wtih chicken. It was nice and spicy, but not particularly flavorful. I expect some good solid lemongrass, galangal, and lime leaf in my Tom Yam broth, all of which were lacking here. I don't think I would order this again even if they hadn't messed up the protein.
The Crab Rangoon, on the other hand, more than made up for the soup. This version was much more rich and creamy than the one that me and my people often make. I may have to do some tweaking of my recipe to try to replicate this brilliance...
The curry was actually pretty damned tasty, too. Now that I'm settled in, one of my first orders of business is to make my own curry pastes (starting with Massaman) to try to replicate some of the kick-ass curry that I had in Thailand. Still, as far as Massaman curries I've had here in the States go, this was awesome.
After sleeping in a bit (until 8am) on Saturday, I got to work finishing up the bulk of the unpacking. While putting away some glassware that required me to get up on my kitchen stool, I discovered this incredibly tasteful salt-and-pepper set that had apparently been left behind by the previous resdients (shoved into the back of one of the top shelves). I have censored the image for my more sensitive readers:
Below are a few apartment pictures for those who are interested. It's hard to capure the colors properly, so you may have to take my word for it that it looks totally awesome. Starting in the kitchen, where Pedro and Rico pretty much dominate things:
I've taken to hiding dried cranberries (which are like crack to the little guys) in the tube to encourage exploration... but that backfired when Pedro took his new-found love of tunnels one step futher, went exploring under the heater (the exit of which is blocked by the cage), and got stuck. Poor, stupid little guy. In non-bunny news, I've had to utilize some above-cupboard space for storage, but it actually seems to be working quite well.
The living room is dominated by a wall of bookcases (full of books) and a corner of bookcases (full of my cocktail shaker collection). I hadn't seen my cocktail shakers in about 2.5 years, so it was a lot of fun unpacking them.
The office/guest room/TV room/den is one of my favorite rooms (and where I'm hanging out as I type this). The bookcase in here is full of my cookbook collection (those books that could not fit are being donated to a charity book drive). This room is super-comfy and looks great. Assuming you're not a stranger reading my blog, consider this your open invitation to come crash in this room (on a blow-up mattress... you wouldn't have to sleep in the chair) if you ever make it over to Boston...
Now that I'm settled in, I'm planning to take it easy for the rest of my 3-day weekend (Yay, Presidents' Day!) and revel in the fact that I really live in this totally awesome place...