sharing food with strangers

[redbird]

After working out, I went down to Chinatown for lunch. Excellent Dumpling is on Lafayette Street just south of Canal; I picked it because it was handy and a quick scan of the menu showed they had various forms of duck over rice.

I was seated at a large round table, with initially two and eventually five other people, all of whom were also eating alone. The waitress asked if I used chopsticks as she handed me the menu: each place was set with chopsticks, spoon, a glass, and a teapot. I said yes, and poured myself a glass of weak Chinese tea. I tried asking the waitress about the food, but her English wasn't up to my questions; I took a chance on the "sweet ginger duck over rice", which turned out to be hot rather than the room temperature meat I expected. It had the sweet red preserved ginger, pineapple, and vegetables, along with four or five good meaty pieces of duck, in a sweetish brown sauce. The sauce was the sort of thing sweet-and-sour might aspire to, if it could forget about breading.

Two of the other people at my table had clearly, in their own estimation, ordered too much food. The woman nearest me kept pressing scallion pancake on me. It was a very good scallion pancake, and I wound up eating three pieces of it, as she worked her way through soup, pancake, and a "lunch special" that came with fried rice and a fried wonton. The woman behind her eventually decided she couldn't finish her vegetable dumplings, and offered them around. Given the name of the restaurant, I figured I would try one. Not bad, a different filling than the standard chopped cooked greens; it would have been better hotter, I think. Another person at the table mentioned a new dim sum place, on the Bowery just south of Canal: he didn't remember the name, but reported "Grand Opening" signs and good dim sum, including "octopus balls".

I stopped on my way to the subway and bought two pounds of cherries, then went up to 14th Street to give Simon back porcinea's housekeys and their copy of Dorothy Heydt's Point of Honor. We chatted a bit while I stroked Trouble, who was once again quite the cuddle-boy.

On my way home from the subway, I cut through Isham Park to check out the mulberry trees there. Three boys who had been playing ball saw me plucking berries, asked "Are those good to eat?" and then dashed over as soon as I said yes. I barely had time to tell them that the black ones are best, because ripe, before they were reaching up, picking, and eating. When I mentioned that someone had told me "years ago" that these are edible, one of them commented that this was an advantage of our neighborhood. (It is, but I knew about mulberries before I lived in Inwood.) As I was walking away, the oldest boy said he liked the white ones.

Teaching about mulberries seems to balance taking Chinese food from strangers, and I enjoyed both.


Cardio, 26 minutes, top heart rate 140

Hip adduction, 100 pounds (that's what it says here, but I think I did 110) 3 sets of 13
Hip abduction, 90 pounds, 3 sets of 13
Both of those are after a couple of weeks of skipping that equipment because of the bruise, and then Tuesday when I did the Xpress Line instead of a normal workout)

Calf machine, 25 pounds, 3 sets of 11
Bench press, 50 pounds, 2 sets of 13 (I had some soreness in my left shoulder before I ever got to the gym, and was trying to be a little easy on it)
Seated leg curl, 85 pounds, 2 sets of 15; 80 pounds, 15

Adjustable row, 110 pounds, 2 sets of 15. Then took it down to 90 pounds, and paid attention to form: 9 reps

Triceps pulldown, 40 pounds, 2 sets of 15; 35 pounds, 15

Crunches, 4 sets of 20
Back arches, 3 sets of 16
Cat-and-camel
Yoga tree

Arm curl (an odd bicep machine, because I was feeling clumsy and didn't want to work with free weights), 25 pounds, 9, 5

(And I forgot to do my stretches, because the stretch machine isn't in sight from there, as it is from the free weight area)