Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Wednesday evening, cattitude and I had dinner with roadnotes and baldanders. It was a good chance to talk with both of them--I'd not seen Baldanders in a while--with the excuse of turning over our spare housekeys.

Wednesday and Thursday were both quite slow at work, so I left an hour early Thursday to meet Lise, to provide moral support and company. We dealt with some errands she'd needed to do, but mostly I wanted to get her out of the house for a little while during the day, and to talk. Or, mostly, to listen. That involved wandering around bits of Brooklyn, and a transit connection I'd never made, from the E at 23rd-Ely to the G; the last time I'd used the 23rd-Ely station, you had to go to Queens Plaza for the G.

Today my office was closed altogether. I headed out when Cattitude did, and got in a reasonable workout in the morning, which works better for me than afternoon or evening. I finished early enough that the Thai places on Ninth Avenue near my gym weren't open yet, so I went down to my usual place in Chinatown. I had another nice meal, and chatted with strangers about this and that, including education and travel, in the course of which I again defended the honor of Parisians, and wrote down a recommendation for a Spanish restaurant in the West Village. I also shared my scallion pancake with the people I was chatting with, since I'd ordered it after eating duck, vegetables, and rice, knowing I wouldn't be able to finish it, but wanting it as a sort of dessert.

Thence, I went up to Union Square for the Greenmarket. It's near the end of berry season, but somehow that translated into $3 or 5 for $10 on half-pints of raspberries and blackberries, so I got five after figuring out that even if I threw one away we were ahead. I got some interesting grapes, but the nice man didn't pronounce the varietal name clearly enough for me to note and remember it. I bought scallops, and chatted with the neighbor who was running the fish stall, as she had when that boat had a space in our neighborhood greenmarket. She double-bagged the scallops with ice so they'd get home in good condtion. I also have a small seedless watermelon, four cucumbers, a loaf of challah, and a bit over a pound of onions. It wound up being both heavy and somewhat ungainly to bring home, but it's tasty. (So far I've had grapes and raspberries; the scallops, bread, and a cucumber or two will become dinner in a little while.

( gym numbers )

This was a fairly thorough, ordinary workout almost until the end, when one set of wrist curls made my left hand hurt enough that I not only stopped at one set, I found a trainer and got an ice pack for the hand. After icing it for a few minutes, I realized I hadn't stretched, so I went back out to the gym floor, did that, and then showered. The floor of the first shower stall I tried seemed vaguely slippery, though dry; instead of trying a random other stall, I used the wheelchair-accessible stall, which has a fold-down wooden seat, so I could sit down and wash and not worry about slipping. As long as I was sitting down, I soaped and rinsed the bottoms of my feet, which I don't generally do at the gym.

Then I went down to Chinatown, had lunch in the usual place, where they put me not at a table with several other single diners, but with several people who knew each other; they sounded like defense attorneys on lunch break from the court. Then up to Union Square for the Greenmarket: my shopping list was apple cider and a Bartlett pear.

I also got plum wine, made from yellow sugar plums; the people who were selling it (and other fruit wines) offered free tastes of all their products. (I don't like most grape-based wines, except in small quantities as ingredients for sauces.) I got a bunch of nice little beets, and one of great big leeks. I got carrots in two colors, neither of them yellow. I even got a demi-baguette, from the vendors who aren't coming up to Inwood this time of year. I wound up with four bags, heavy and awkward: the smaller daypack is supposed to discourage me from this temptation, but when that doesn't work, I have to carry everything using my hands and arms. Quite a haul for the 29th of November: no berries or fresh plums, but I had quite enough to carry, and my produce drawer is already too full to have room for the leeks.

( gym numbers )

I picked up a quart of Ronnybrook Farms plain yogurt at the Greenmarket on Wednesday: they're a nice local dairy, and the price on their whole milk yogurt was about what I pay at the supermarket for Dannon (and less than the supermarket price for Stonybrook Farms). I opened it this morning.

It's thinner than the Dannon (so is the Stonybrook Farms), and noticeably sharper/more sour. If I were making tzatziki, or using it in a curry, that might be an advantage (though the thinness would be a disadvantage for tzatziki). For breakfast, yogurt with fruit, I don't want that sharp edge. I'll probably finish this, but not buy it again.

Ronnybrook Farms also sells milk (including a full-fat chocolate milk), butter, ice cream, heavy cream, creme fraiche, and a few other things. When I wanted to try papersky's suggestion that ice cream would taste better if I made it using cream without carrageenan, I went to Ronnybrook Farms. (I couldn't taste the difference, nor could cattitude.) I haven't tried their butter, because I doubt it would taste twice as good to me as the Land o' Lakes we're getting at the supermarket, and it costs about twice as much. (We're following Consumer Reports's advice on brands of butter: there are differences in flavor, and we like the one they recommended.) Mostly, I stop by their stand and get a single serving of ice cream or a pint of chocolate milk, and eat or drink it while wandering through the market shopping for fruit and vegetables, or just wandering for its own sake.

I came home from the Greenmarket with a bunch of beets and a bundle of leeks. We already had an acorn squash.

Prepping the vegetables was enough to make me wish for a compost heap, as I threw out huge amounts of greenery, squash seeds, and the like.

Then I put them all in to roast. I misjudged the timing, so we had roasted squash (with maple syrup) and leeks, then forty-five minutes later had roasted beets. (They'd cooled down enough that they needed to be started almost from scratch).

I'm not surprised that julian_tiger likes roasted beets. He likes most things. I am surprised that he liked them enough to do the pop-up pussycat thing, head over the table, to tell us he wanted more. And the paws on my lap thing, with the same meaning, asking for yet more.

After exercising this morning, I met cattitude for lunch at Excellent Dumpling, which he now works near. The waiter assumed that we knew what we wanted right away, because I usually did; I asked him to come back in a couple of minutes. Cattitude basically said "you know what's good here," so I took advantage of their being two of us to get fried pork dumplings and sizzling beef chow fun. I like dumplings, but just dumplings means I feel vegetable-deprived (though the beef chow fun isn't as good on that score as most of what I order). [As I noted at the time, I don't like Cantonese vegetable dumplings, because they tend to have slimy green insides: I do like potato pierogi, which are technically a vegetable dumpling, but very different. papersky, this may be something to look into when you do that "where does the pierogi turn into the wonton" trip.] It was nice to have the company, and now Cattitude knows where Excellent Dumpling is, which he may find useful.

While Cattitude went back to work, I walked over to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, because I wanted a ginger cone. They had ginger ice cream this time (they'd been out of it when I was there last), but while it was pleasant enough, I didn't think it had enough ginger. Okay, time to buy more crystallized ginger and make my own again. Thence, I took the 6 up to Union Square, with the intention of getting a new mobile phone and an ink cartridge for my printer.

It may be possible to walk into the Virgin Megastore, buy a phone, and walk out, but I wasn't in a hurry, the background music wasn't aggressive, and they were pushing a variety of CDs on sale for $10, so I picked up a John Lennon collection. Then I walked over to the R's, because various people had recommended Radiohead. It turned out that OK Computer was in the $10 sale. Done. The phones are kept behind the counter, and there's no way to look at them rather than the boxes, so I pulled out the notes I'd made while looking online, and asked the cashier to show me the two I'd narrowed it down to. In the end, I decided that I would use at most one of the features that the $90 one had and the $30 one didn't (there's a slight chance I might use a camera if my phone had one), and asked for the $30. The cashier rang me up, and asked if I was interested in their new VIP card; after determining that it costs nothing, I said yes. I filled out the form, then realized that I was being charged $43 and change, including tax. I asked how that worked, and discovered that the phone that would have cost me $29 on the Web was $19 in the store, so I'd not only saved some time, I'd saved $10. Whether it would have been worth going downtown just for the financial difference is an interesting question; it was definitely worth stopping off on my way home to get the same product sooner and for less, and buy other things in the same neighborhood.

My mental tag on Union Square is "Greenmarket" [1]. Monday isn't the biggest day, but there was quite a bit there. The available grapes were Niagara and Concord, neither of which I like; I think the people who bring Vanessas to the market are Saturday-only, and we may be late in the season for those anyhow. I got plums (the little Italian prunes). I got two pounds of cooked crabs, for $4/pounds, which seemed fair. I got some baby lettuce and a couple of small cucumbers to go with them. There are par-baked croissants in the freezer.

The printer ink cartridge I need was $69 at Staples. I decided to wait, and see about shopping around. That seems to be about the going rate for the HP cartridge in question. I may wait a bit, and hope for a sale before I actually need to replace this one (over the weekend I took it out of the printer, shook it, and replaced it, and it's working properly for the moment), or see what information I can find about the merits and otherwise of refilled cartridges or non-HP supplies. I was carrying enough by then that, had I bought the cartridge, I'd probably have skipped the crabs and salad, and there's a Staples up in Kingsbridge, much closer to home, if I need a cartridge in a hurry.

Then I came home, put things away, turned the stereo on, unwrapped the Radiohead album and started listening to it,, and went to make tea. Five or ten minutes later, I went into the kitchen for something else, looked at the stove, muttered "it works better when you turn it on," and actually started to heat the water. Tea is good. Radiohead is also good; next time through I should pay more attention to the lyrics, but I was reading all your journals.

[1] the name used by the local farmer's markets to distinguish them from various groceries and greengrocers that were calling themselves "farmer's markets" when the Greenmarket started, 30 years ago.

The other cool thing yesterday was that we got to the new Greenmarket [local farmer's market] in the neighborhood in good time yesterday morning. We had sweet corn (three ears each) for lunch yesterday. A blackberry pie. Ginger apple cider--we got that from a farmer who's been bringing plain apple, and apple raspberry, to Union Square for years, and commented that she likes Inwood, and liked seeing people she recognized from Union Square. I was surprised, given the amount of business they do, and thus the number of people they must see there, to be recognized. Two pounds of really ripe cherries--I just had some with my morning yogurt. Yum. And some organic yogurt, to try, because it was cheaper than the Dannon at the supermarket (quarts of plain whole milk yogurt, in each case).

We also tasted some meatloaf from an organic meat vendor, and may buy from them next week--but with a dodgy refrigerator and plans to go out that night, we weren't buying meat yesterday. And so many other things--lettuces, green beans, berries....

I appear to be seriously allergic to something in eleanor's apartment--my best guess is that Sevi, the cat who I am allergic to (and who in theory lives elsewhere) has gotten enough dander into the place to cause me problems even if I carefully don't touch her. I had to leave Ellie's birthday party after about 45 minutes, having barely had a chance to talk to her or anyone else (beyond burbling about Julian to volund).

However, the party did get me and cattitude downtown; I treated him to dinner at Faan [sic], an "Asian fusion" restaurant on Sixth Avenue between 8th and 9th Streets (next to the papaya place--the last time I was in that space it was Charlie Mom Noodle Shop) that r_ness recommended. Thanks for the suggestion/information! We both ordered entrees off the specials menu: Cattitude had red snapper with cheese, nori, hoisin, and what I guessed might be shredded jicama; I had duck with lichees (and a few asparagus spears). We were each very pleased with our own dish, though less impressed with the other's. Appetizers were a "New York roll" maki sushi of salmon skin, scallion, and cucumber--it practically had my name on it--and toasted sesame seeds on the outside. If I'd designed it, I'd have used tobiko instead of the sesame, and I would have been wrong. The toasted sesame worked just right there. Besides, there was plenty of tobiko on the other appetizer, a pleasant fancied-up variant of Crab Rangoon (well, fancied-up, and then de-fancied by the use of "crab stick" instead of actual crab), and on Cattitude's fish.

Before dinner, I went to the gym and then down to St. Mark's Place to buy some socks: three pairs in boring black, one in slightly weird tie-dye. And before that we checked out the new Greenmarket in our neighborhood (Isham between Seaman and Park Terrace West, Saturdays only), but by the time we got there almost everything was sold out. So we chatted about that, Inwood, and thence eagles, DDT, and related matters with one of the vendors, before someone grabbed her to introduce her to a restaurant owner. Next week, she said, she'll bring more cherries and more apples, having seen how eager Inwood is to buy them.

( gym stuff: not a great workout )

I went to downtown Brooklyn this morning, thinking to combine a trip to the bank with a stop at Sahadi. The bank business was quick and easy, and the teller praised me for having kept my savings bond until it matured (actually after, and they keep accruing interest). All I actually needed at Sahadi was cinnamon tea and tomato paste, but I bought an assortment of dried fruit and some cookies.

What I'd forgotten when I set out is that Thursday is a Greenmarket day at Brooklyn Borough Hall. I wandered, and tasted, and shopped: plums and peaches and raspberries, tomatoes and green beans. Things tasted and not purchased included a Bartlett pear (it was very nice, but I couldn't find a ripe one on the table, and I'm going to be waiting a day on the peaches), husk tomatoes (like tiny cherry tomatoes, peel and eat, I wasn't impressed), cantaloupe (pure greed, since I knew I wouldn't be carrying one home), and a Spartan apple (a variety new to me, which I didn't care for). I could have had four kinds of mushrooms--but when to cook them, since cattitude is allergic?--many sorts of apples and squash, onions and bell peppers and garlic (which are about the total of vegetables we had in the house when I set out this morning), cider and baked goods. A cornucopia, limited only by what I can use and carry. I do wonder what the pear pie would have tasted like.

I'm in the middle of putting together a tossed salad for dinner. (Despite at least four thunderstorms, it's oppressively hot and humid--salad and bread will do.)

I have a head of Simpson's lettuce I picked up at the Union Square Greenmarket. A nice leafy green lettuce, loose head--I bought it because I'd never heard of this variety.

I tore off a few leaves (salad for one), and took them over to the sink to wash them. The bottom of each leaf had rich black dirt clinging to it.

I thought "These were grown in actual soil!" and then realized how profoundly weird it is that this is noteworthy.

I suspect that most of the lettuce I get was also grown in actual soil: but it's been carefully removed before the lettuce reaches the supermarket or greengrocer. I wash lettuce out of habit and training, and in case it's been sprayed with noxious chemicals.

I will now go and tear up watercress, purchased at the same market stall but, unsurprisingly, without black soil clinging to it.

For dessert, I have strawberries. Good, ripe, local strawberries. Which may or may not have been grown in actual soil.