dynamic elf

Put out pizza in the office kitchen, and no matter how much there is, it will all be gone in less than 45 minutes.

Put out a spread of barbecue, and within an hour, everything is gone but some cornbread and greens.

Put out a tray of cut vegetables, and it stays there all day.


I think I'm the only one eating the grape tomatoes! How can that be?

Last night, I went to Bombay Mahal in Waltham with fennel, on the recommendation of a coworker of his. The food was great -- you should all go, right now, even if you don't live in Boston -- but I'm not actually here to describe the things we ate and their flavors, good as they were. It was the texture of the food that amazed me. Have you ever gone clothes shopping by closing your eyes and walking around the store with your fingers extended, and choosing the items that make you stop in your tracks? This was the culinary equivalent of that.

(Also of note: they mean it when they spice things. We got two 'medium'-spiced dishes, and both were more like what most random Indian restaurants around here would call 'hot', or at very least 'medium-hot'. According to fennel's coworker: "mild still has a kick, but not enough that anyone would complain". Just FYI.)

You know how every year or two, you have to re-try foods you don't like just to make sure you haven't started liking them when you weren't looking? Maybe it's me, but there are some foods I have to try this with over and over. Anchovies, for example. Doing this is like poking a bruise -- it's rarely a good idea but you can't stop yourself anyway. ("Ow! Nope. Still hurts.")

Anyway, I think I might have finally turned the corner on salty licorice.

I seem to occasionally eat something that causes Natalie to reject my milk entirely. Poor girl -- she doesn't realize it's bad until it's too late and she already feels crappy, too. But once she starts feeling bad, just being near my breast makes her cry. We are hugging her lots. She is mostly burping and looking sad. None of us seem to be sleeping.

On the bright side, it doesn't seem to be dairy! It might be peppers, or chocolate, or something else entirely. Time will tell, unless it doesn't.

( More than you wanted to know about breastfeeding and digestion, probably )

In other news, we're roughly diurnal, now! My day seems to start at 5 or so, which isn't ideal, but it'll do for a start. Hooray!

Yay beer!

When D and I were in Tokyo, we went to a restaurant called Ninja. I photographed all of our food, but the restaurant, for the most part, was too pitch-black to photograph with the lens I had. It was an elaborate and silly theme restaurant, where you had to go through twisty passageways and escape BAD NINJA before being led to your own little private dining room. And the food -- the food was exquisite. Really worth it.

Anyway -- they've just opened a sister restaurant, Ninja New York. Here's a quote from a review:

Would you like to follow the "easy" or "difficult" path to your table, they ask. Do not be faint-hearted -- there is really nothing thorny about the hard road. You will be whisked via elevator down to the subterranean dining floor, across which your guide will lead you along a somewhat labyrinthine path to your table. With his recitation of an incantation here or a secret pass code there, a drawbridge will descend from the heavens to allow you to traverse the River of Frogs or a wall will move to reveal an intimate dining area.

You have arrived. Ninja New York is a $3.5 million dollar, 6,000-square-foot recreation of two 18th-century, mountainside Japanese villages, Iga and Kouga, the birthplace of Ninja warrior lore.

Can I just point out, RIVER OF FROGS. I do hope the food is as good as it was in Tokyo -- though, as D points out, no matter how good it is, it won't be the same as getting the whole ninja spiel in genuine broken English, and being waited on in Japanese. I still have to go, though.

Thanks go to dr_memory for pointing this out to me.

[1] If you've had a long hard day, the kind where you can just barely make it in the front door with your groceries (even though people are helping you with that last bit), don't drown your sorrows in a whole big container of cottage cheese. Just don't. Go for the ice cream, or something, instead. In the end, you'll be happier, and you'll probably waddle less.

[2] If you feed 1/3 of your pumpkin muffin batter to the floor, try to be pleased that the remaining batter -- that's right, the stuff you were just staring at and wondering whether it'd make a really flat loaf, or what -- just so happens to precisely fill up the emptied muffin tins.

[3] Butternut squash roasting in garlic and a bit of spice smells really good. As a bonus, it matches the pumpkin muffin batter on the floor.

(And apparently, it makes vegetarians come downstairs and ask, "what is that seductive meaty smell that smells so meaty and yet good?" "Uh, squash.")

Moxie now makes an energy drink!



I bought one, but I don't dare try it yet. My brother's review:

Yes, I discovered that this summer. I had to try one, too.
Unfortunately, its Moxieness didn't come through. I wanted a gross-
tasting energy drink, but instead I got... well, it *was* a gross-
tasting energy drink. But it wasn't gross like Moxie should be gross.
It was just energy-drink gross.

A fine line to walk.

I went out to a restaurant week dinner last night. The company was excellent, the food merely okay, and the service -- well, the service was really crappy. I don't think they refilled my water glass all evening. I indulged in an espresso, since I allow myself a tiny bit of caffeine from time to time, and I was shocked! shocked! to discover that not only had I not gotten a demitasse spoon, but also, that the little saucer was entirely bare.

A nude espresso. How sad and lonely.

[Poll #558807]

I guess I have very strong feelings about my after-dinner coffee. One of the most delightful "me-too!" mealtime experiences I've ever had was with tafkar, where we shared our silly but firm after-dinner restaurant coffee preferences, down to the type of dishware.

Still, even a lonely nude espresso settles my stomach after dinner. It could have been worse.