things I like this week, vol. 39

I have it on good authority that this performance is entirely improv - that these dancers never choreograph a performance (unlike most professional dancers).

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It's the entire text of The Great Gastby on a 20x30 poster.

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My friend Bree, photographed for an article on the local brewery Borderlands. Her fiance is the brewer. Their beer (and I don't like beer) is awesome.

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Angelina Jolie in an interview for Vanity Fair in 2010, talking about her kids becoming teenagers:

“I had some great advice: ‘You’ll know they’re teenagers when they close the door.’ And when they start closing the door, don’t talk to them, listen. Because there’s nothing you could say. You’re not going to be able to tell them you know better. You’re not going to be able to correct them. . . . You have to raise them right before that. Then you need to listen for a good five years, just keep your mouth closed. Just be their friend—don’t try to always tell them they’re wrong.”

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 I would like to spend my entire summer like this - swimsuit, nailpolish, turban, everything. From a blogpost about American designer Claire McCardell.

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There's part of me that read this article and the accompanying NPR interview and wanted to become a street musician.

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Although pianos are hard to transport and I could never be as fast-fingered as this guy.

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Casey Legler, who is a woman working entirely as a male model. So awesome.

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Simple and elegant roses from a Slim Paley post . . .

 

. . . which inspired me to get these the following morning . . . 

 

. . . which looked about the way Sauvignon Republic's 2012 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc tasted, which is to say, like grapefruit and sunrise. I highly recommend it with your next brunch - it's $8 at Trader Joe's. 

Christmas is here (and gone) again

I meant to make this post Christmas day - and I meant to take pictures with a camera better than my iPhone - but neither happened, and I'm posting them anyway. I always love seeing other people's holiday traditions, and I am naively assuming you do, too.

The tree, complete with presents.

Always a real tree.

A relic from the 70's - my parents had the album on cassette and it defined the holidays for me as a child.

Rather spring-timey for Christmas Eve dinner, but I enjoyed it anyway - this is the first time I've actually used my grandmother's china, despite being in possession of it for several years. It was my first year making the traditional French-Canadian tourtière,too, but I didn't take any pictures of that, for though it was delicious, the top crust broke.

Eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, chocolate croissant, coffee that soon had Bailey's and peppermint schnapps in it, and a mimosa. Heaven.

The cat in Christmas-cheer mode.

And the final Christmas tradition: White Christmas.

breakfast in tucson: bobo's restaurant

A good friend of mine, knowing how much we love breakfast diners, recommended Bobo's to us awhile ago. We finally got around to going this past weekend.

It's in a low-traffic area of midtown, in a white brick building that's seen better days. When we arrived at 1:20 in the afternoon, the place was still packed, which seemed to us like a good sign.

The serving area is tiny, with the griddles immediately behind the counter and fully visible. A couple of taped up articles on the wall - along with the reviews online - had mentioned the pancakes, so that's what I was planning on trying.

Our waiter showed up, asking if we wanted coffee, with two beat-up mugs and the pot in his hand - another good sign. One of Colin's and my requirements for a breakfast place is the immediate availability of coffee and swift refills; Bobo's was right on the money the entire time we were there, and the coffee was strong without being overpowering.

The menu was typical diner food, except for the multiple varieties of pancakes: banana, apple, blueberry. I asked our waiter (who looked vaguely like Dave Chapelle, without acting at all like him) what his favorite was, and he said "apple" so cheerfully and with such certainty that I wouldn't have ordered anything else (though I did add eggs over medium, bacon, and sausage). Colin got the pork chop and eggs, and J had the kid's eggs, home fries, and sausage.

This is what arrived a few minutes later:

the ugliest, most delicious pancake you'll ever meet.

There were fresh apple rounds embedded in the top. The pancake was just sweet enough that I could eat it without syrup, though a little bit was a nice touch. There were places where the sugar had caramelized, and though it was wonderful, Colin and I didn't even finish it off - I had to ask for a take-home box (and it was still delicious the next day).

The eggs were cooked just right (some places have difficulty with over medium, I guess because it's ordered less often), and the sausage was a hand-formed patty of goodness.

The place won't earn any points for prettiness - the vents run visibly along the ceiling, and the cheesy window scenes painted on the wall don't add much - but the food was great and the prices quite reasonable. The crowd was everything from old people to homies to college kids, and even more remarkably, every single employee we talked to was in a genuinely good mood, though it was the end of what had to have been a long, busy day.

Even though it's a bit of a drive for us, Bobo's has definitely earned a spot on the breakfast rotation.

culinary adventures

Breakfast is by far my favorite meal to make. I'm slowly expanding my repertoire.


The top knife wasn't sharp enough. Resorted to one of our fancy steak knives, which worked quite well. Loved the light, though.



The beginnings of a vaguely eggs Provençale-type dish.



Finished product: poached eggs, tomatoes, hash browns, thick-cut applewood bacon, bloody mary.



My favorite way to make eggs of late: fried in a piece of toast. Accompanied by oatmeal, vanilla yogurt with mixed berries, an Irish coffee, and a tangerine I didn't end up eating.

To cook the egg this way:
Find good bread. (This is essential.) In the above, I used a multi-grain. Lightly butter--real butter, not margarine!--both sides of the bread. With your fingers, tear a hole in the middle of the bread about two inches across. Throw both pieces in a pan at a little less than medium heat. Put a very small pat of butter in the hole (to keep the egg from sticking). Crack the egg in the hole, and cook until 2/3 of the white is white. Flip. The bread will be evenly toasted at about the time the yolk is still just a little runny.

For some reason, that extra little circle of bread is incredibly tasty--much better than bread toasted and buttered afterward.

sunday, in pictures

At about noon. By then half the snow had melted from what I saw when I woke up at 7:30.










Tomatoes. Two knives because the first wasn't properly sharpened.


Poached eggs Provençal, thick-cut bacon, hash browns, bloody mary.


Tak thinks she's a person, so she always joins us while we're eating.


2 pm. Snowing again.





Oh, the palm trees.


My grading set up. You'll notice Tak in the bottom left chair, keeping me company.

improvisation

à la simply breakfast.



On a make-do with whatever's around morning: maple and brown sugar oatmeal, gluten-free pancakes, fried egg and colby jack on toasted english muffin, and earl grey, hot.

Caffè Torino

As a general rule, we eat out for breakfast at least once a week, and thereby have sampled many of the breakfast places in town. This morning Colin and I tried Caffè Torino, at the southwest corner of Lambert and La Cañada, which we enjoyed enough that it will likely feature heavily in our weekend breakfast rotation.

The atmosphere is lovely: we sat on the terrace, which had deep, wicker-back chairs and solid tables that didn't wobble on the concrete. The mesh covers they had put up over the terrace let in just the right amount of light; the music was bright and jazzy but at a pleasant volume; Colin appreciated the red stone pillars, and I liked the pots with small citrus trees at the gaps in the wrought iron fence. The noise level overall was quite low and peaceful. Had there been a cobblestone street in front of us instead of the parking lot, it would have been perfect.

I had a hard time deciding what to order. The breakfast menu was fairly extensive, with Italian twists on the usual options. At the waitress's suggestion I went with the Uovo con Prosciutto; Colin had the Eggs Benedict. There is no children's menu, but we ordered à la carte for J: a hard-boiled egg and a fruit cup. They brought a very large piece of paper and a tin cup of markers to entertain her.

They serve LavAzza coffee, a brand from Italy that Colin and I fell in love with originally at Le Delice. It's smooth and strong and chocolatey, and here it comes in large, white mugs with the LavAzza logo on the side. The ice water is served in large goblets with a lemon garnish, which is a small upgrade but one I appreciate. So often restaurants treat their water like the red-headed stepchild, and give you the cheapest cups they have.

My Uovo con Prosciutto was absolutely delicious. The eggs were over medium--and true to that, just runny enough in the yolk--and somehow fluffy, layered with melted, tangy asiago cheese and a crown of prosciutto. I sometimes have texture issues with ham products, but this worked wonderfully with the yolk and the cheese. I picked the red potatoes with rosemary for a side (the other options were fruit or sliced tomatoes), and they were crisp and buttery but not overdone. The ciabatta toast came buttered and was perfect to sop up the excess yolk.

Colin's Egg Benedict had the best hollandaise he's tried so far (he's made it a point to sample the Benedict at every restaurant that serves it). I appreciated that it was an accent flavor and not a soup, as at some places. He said that the Canadian bacon was a bit chewy, but the smokiness redeemed it. Joley's hardboiled egg was fresh and lacked that green film around the yolk that I loathe; her fruit cup had a nice variety, with only a few pieces of melon among lots of pineapple, strawberries, and bananas.

We ordered the Bananas Foster for dessert, which was sweet and delicious but not overpowering; its only downfall was that it very quickly became more of a soup than solid.

They could work a bit more on their service: with only two waitresses, things lagged a bit, especially near the end when the terrace was almost filled. They appeared to be mother and daughter, and both had slight and charming accents. Our brunch set us back about $40, plus tip, which is comparable to other places with much less going for them.

If you're looking for something beyond your typical greasy spoon, this is a stellar option.

(Next time I do a review, I'll bring my camera for pictures. You lose a lot by not being able to see how pretty the food was.)