Monday, June 22, 2021
We had a very successful weekend in Massachusetts, celebrating with the second and third generations. I can offer a few tips for your own future enjoyment.
Committee Ouzeri + Bar, 50 Northern Avenue, Boston, is very comfortably arranged for outdoor dining in warm weather. We had brunch there on Saturday, with some dishes from the Greek/Mediterranean side of the menu. Notable were the souvlaki, six chunks of grilled, marinated lamb with a scoop of tzatziki ($20) and the shakshuka, made with six eggs to serve two or three people, in a particularly spicy tomato sauce ($24).
If you are blessed to have some tots along with you, order the "Tsoureki Toast," which must be another name for challah French toast. Committee serves eight thick half slices of bread, accompanied by maple whipped cream, berries and Nutella ($28). Extra napkins required.
Another versatile place in Boston is the Time Out Market, 401 Park Drive, a food court at least a block long, holding a dozen or more vendors. Each of us went our own way -- pizza, fish tacos, chicken tacos, guilt-inducing salad. I ordered a roast beef sandwich from Cusser’s Roast Beef & Seafood, Wagyu beef, really rare, sliced thin on an onion roll, with cheddar cheese, pickled red onions and spicy aioli (called Thoreau sauce for some unknown reason) ($16 with $4 worth of extra meat). A delight.
On our way home, we detoured to Amherst to visit old friends. We had lunch at Formosa Chinese Restaurant, 62 Main Street, where they served a great scallion pancake ($4.95).
. . .
Speaking of food, or what is trying
to pass as food, the New York Times followed up on the question of
Subway sandwich shops' version of tuna fish. As a result of a law suit
challenging that identification, a reporter "procured more than 60 inches
worth of Subway tuna sandwiches [from three different Subway locations around
Los Angeles,] . . . removed and froze the tuna meat, then shipped it across the
country to a commercial food testing lab." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/
According to the "U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there are 15 species of nomadic saltwater fish that can be labeled 'tuna.'” The lab report: "No amplifiable tuna DNA was present in the sample and so we obtained no amplification products from the DNA. Therefore, we cannot identify the species." Sorry, Charlie.
. . .
With the money that you will save by
forgoing ersatz tuna sandwiches, you can consider investing in real
estate. With the sale price of the median U.S. home at $350,000, $1
million should seem to offer real clout. Here's where to look for expensive homes. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/
California cities take the top four spots, New York at fifth. Remarkably, in the San Jose metropolitan area, "the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley," according to Wikipedia, 47% of owner-occupied units are worth more than $1 million, while Kansas City, MO, Louisville, Memphis, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, OH, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo do not even reach 1%.
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
I was aiming for a home run tonight. I met Terrific Tom; we had dinner at Tim Ho Wan, 610 Ninth Avenue, the superb dim sum restaurant; then we headed to the Mets game, rounding third base. However, the Mets forgot that hitting the baseball is part of the game and they lost, scoring no runs for the second night in a row, effectively throwing us out at the plate.
Back to second base and the dim sum that we shared: baked BBQ pork buns ($6); steamed pork spare ribs with black bean sauce ($5.95); steamed bean curd with shrimp and vegetables ($5.95); siu mai ($5.95); deep fried dumplings with pork and dried shrimp ($5.85); deep fried eggplant with shrimp ($5.95); steamed shrimp dumplings ($5.95). Believe it or not, there were a few things on the menu that we did not order. Maybe next time.
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
If Britney Spears were Jewish, her parents would not have had to resort to a conservatorship to control her behavior. Guilt would have been enough.
Thursday, June 24, 2021
In another affirmation of the return to normalcy, the Boyz Club turned out strong for lunch at 456 New Shanghai, 69 Mott Street. Looking back on what we ate, it seems more like we were going into lockdown not emerging from it. We had soup buns ($5.95 for 8), "Wontons in Spicy Flavor" ($5.75 for 6), "Scallion Pancake w. Egg & Beef" (2 for $5.95 each), pork in garlic sauce ($6.25), beef with scallion ($6.75), chicken in orange flavor ($6.50), "Baby Shrimp w. Egg Sauce" a/k/a scrambled eggs with shrimp ($6.50), fish fillet in spicy bean sauce ($6.95), eggplant in garlic sauce ($6.25). The last six dishes, with their low prices, were lunch specials of ample size to go around the table. They also brought along hot and sour soup and rice. Bottom line = $12 each for a top rank lunch.
. . .
After a lot of lunch, a little politics. Benjamin Franklin wrote "That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved." The Washington Post writes "Republican governors in 25 states are in the midst of a giant economic experiment, ceasing enhanced jobless aid for an estimated 4 million people, arguing that the generous benefits are dissuading people from going back to work."
https://www.washingtonpost.
In other words, it is better that 100 needy people (or maybe 4 million) are denied enhanced jobless aid than that one person is dissuaded from going back to work.
Friday, June 25, 2021
The Yiddish term alte kocker may be applied to yourself with affection, to anyone else with derision. One area where we "seniors" are viewed skeptically by society-at-large is susceptibility to fraud. Those telephone calls from faux distraught grandsons or Social Security watchdogs seem designed to lower our defenses. Especially for the older and isolated, a kind and caring voice may serve to cut through the cobwebs surrounding our wallets.
Well, as Austrian novelist Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach wrote: "In youth we learn; in age we understand." "For years now, the Better Business Bureau’s survey research has shown that younger adults lose money to swindlers much more often than the older people you may think of as the stereotypical victims. The Federal Trade Commission reports similar figures, with 44 percent of people ages 20 to 29 losing money to fraud, more than double the 20 percent of people ages 70 to 79." https://nyti.ms/3vUy43D
forgoing
ReplyDeleteCorrected. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteNo Subway? Who can you trust?
ReplyDeleteLove that non spicy Thoreau has a spicy aioli named after him.
ReplyDelete