This weekend, my friends Carrie and Joshua came to visit from Massachusetts. They drove, the brave, patient souls, and we had a whirlwind weekend of long walks, eating, and pleasantly just existing.
When I visited them for New Year’s, I was treated to beautiful homemade meals of sushi and fresh pasta, as well as a lovely exploratory walk of their town, two holiday parties and an outdoor hot tub with a neighboring wood fire. My goal was to attempt to meet this level of visit excellence. However, I—we, really—were immediately hit with a very serious problem. We had way too much food. We also planned to go biking, visit the Arboretum, visit the gems of Ypsilanti, and find the street Carrie had lived on during a very brief stay in Ann Arbor years ago. In approximately 48 hours.
In preparation for a fast-paced weekend, I had procured salad greens, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, catfish filets, potatoes, and pasta. They brought tomatoes, herbs, and bread from the CSA. They also wanted to take me out for dinner to celebrate my new job. I also wanted to take them to my usual haunts.
We spent the entire weekend eating.
Shortly after their arrival, we headed downtown for dinner and beer at Old Town. We ate ribs, a Knight’s burger, and a reuben with pitchers of Oberon and Two Hearted. We were joined over time by friends who’d planned to join us and those who were collected along the way, maxing out around a dozen. Diagrams of how people knew each other were drawn by hands in the air. Stories were told. Design theory was hashed out. Drinks were drunk. We drifted home, full of meat and hops and goodwill toward men.
After sleeping in on Saturday, and changing the tires on my bike to the lovely road tires they’d brought me, we brunched at Northside Grill, consuming two-egg breakfasts and pancakes. We headed to the farmer’s market, intent on browsing only and full of plans to tour downtown and campus. However, we were faced with raspberries and cherries. We bought them. We continued downtown to drop by The Brickyard and had a small picnic of fruit and almonds. Another friend, just returned from the meat capital of America, called to let me know he had thick cut, vacuum-sealed bacon for my visitors. We met him upstairs, received the bacon, and wandered southward toward campus. All that walking required a snack of tomato bruschetta and ABC’s Brasserie Blonde at Dominick’s.
This is where we descended into madness.
Still wanting to take me out to dinner, my guests suggested that we go to eve in Kerrytown. I reminded them that they were leaving on Sunday afternoon, so our only chance at a fish and potato dinner would be that very night. They made the obvious point that we would just have to have two dinners. Reservations for a late dinner at eve were made, and after an attempt to triangulate Carrie’s old neighborhood, we began the march home to fix dinner number one.
We drank cranberry juice and Vernor’s and made insalata caprese, garlic mashed potatoes, and milk-soaked, flour-dredged fried catfish. We all remained prone for approximately an hour, with Carrie and I elevating our various bad joints made worse by walking nearly all the way to the Zen Buddhist Temple on Packard and back, then rose and dressed for dinner number two, which consisted of really delicious cocktails, appetizers (curry mussels, chicken dumplings, and scallops), and desserts (with wine, of course). Creme fraishe was the order of the evening.
On Sunday, sure we would never eat again, we rose and began to plan the bike ride, which got increasingly short as we discussed it, despite our clear need for exercise. Then, an IM from my usual weekend brunch companion sent us rolling toward the Roadhouse for oysters, grits, eggs, huevos rancheros, and pastries. Afterwards we slowly prepared ourselves for exertion and rode the paved path around Argo Pond, stopping occasionally in search of wormwood. Successful, we returned to my apartment, packed their car, I sent them off only 2 hours behind schedule. I was left with the beginnings of bathtub absinthe, leftover potatoes and fish, several tomatoes, and a surprise bottle of 10-year Laphroaig.
These people are probably the best house guests ever.
Posted: August 23rd, 2009 | Filed under: Ann Arbor, Booze, Food and Drink, My Body Is a Temple, Shenanigans | Tags: Dominick's, eve, farmers market, hillbilly bacon, Knight's burgers, Northside Grill, Oberon, Old Town, Two Hearted, Zingerman's Roadhouse | 3 Comments
me: there is a recipe in here from my grandmother’s archnemesis. you know how church ladies have nemeses.
joshua: I can imagine.
me: the best part? my grandmother’s archnemesis’s name. Dottie Bone.
joshua: Holy crap.
me: Dottie Bone’s pineapple cake.
joshua: Do you think it was obtained through skullduggery?
me: no. I bet Dottie gave it to her. I mean, they had to be nice to each other. they were CHURCH LADIES.
joshua: Do you suspect this recipe then? This could be a sabotaged recipe. There’s no suspicious salt or baking soda or soap or anything?
me: this is the recipe in its entirety.
me: Pineapple Cake
1 – D. Hine yellow cake mix
Add 4 eggs – 3/4 oil – 1/4 water – 1 box instant pudding mix
Place on crushed pineapple – brown sugar – butter
—Bone
joshua: You can almost hear the “You won this round” contempt.
Yesterday I attended the summer iteration of Shadow Art Fair at Corner Brewery in Ypsi, and it was just as awesome as the last time.
This time, I splurged a bit and got a necklace (by Wei’s Open Secret) and a photo print (by Ann Arbor’s own Peter Baker) for myself, as well as a birthday gift for my mom.
I also traded some postcards and stickers, and ran into some other Ann Arborites happy to escape the art fairs in town this past week.
Some of my favorite artists there this time:
Peter Baker: hand-printed film photographs of locations all over the United States. Find him at peterbaker.com (photography), elevatedworks.com (design and development), or ptrbkr.com (blog).
Sara J. Bradstreet/Broad Street: antique and vintage remixed jewelry. Find her at broadsinthestreets.com (portfolio) and broadstreet.etsy.com (store).
Lori Brown/MorninGlori: softies and sculptures of charming creatures. Find her at themorninglorivine.typepad.com (blog), morninglori.etsy.com (store), or myspace.com/peculiarflower (myspace).
Amanda Marie Edmonds/amepix: buttons, magnets, stickers, and accessories with a garden and localvore theme. Find her at amepix.etsy.com (store) and amepix.net (photo gallery).
Elevated Press: letterpressed cards and stationary. Find them at elevatedpress.com (coming soon) and elevatedpress.etsy.com (st0re).
Cre Fuller/Tin Angry Men: found-object (mostly coffee percolators!) robot sculptures and lamps. Sadly no website, but here are some photos.
The Proper Peach: felt and flannel toys and accessories. Find them at theproperpeach.etsy.com (store).
Meredith Reeds/Rug Wear: handwoven and fiber art accessories. Find her at handwoven.etsy.com (shop)
Brian Walline/Route 17: postcards, posters, and stickers with an Ypsi-Arbor flavor. Find him at brianwalline.com (portfolio).
Last weekend I went back to Pennsylvania to see my family. While there, I swung by Knoebels to see my old stomping grounds and see what’s changed over the years since I visited last.
View the full set of photos and videos from Knoebels.
While I was home I also stumbled across my grandmother’s recipe box. It is full of mid-20th century delight, including both her original recipes and those collected from friends and periodicals. Some highlights include a recipe for smoking 100 lbs. of pork, jello salads clipped from magazines, and 11 ways to make pickles. Also: white wash.
I’m currently planning to scan or photograph the cards, as well as to enter the contents into a database or XML file.
Daniel MacArthur of the Genetic Future blog at scienceblogs has broached the topic of using realtime online technologies (liveblogging, twitter, flickr, etc.) at science conference in a few posts, and updates with some information about a peer creating a set of slides and icons to indicate how information contained in a presentation can be disseminated:
A while back I pondered the possibility of creating icons for conference presenters to add to their first slide to alert bloggers/tweeters in the audience about whether the presented data was “blog-safe”. This was provoked by a recent episode illustrating general confusion among bloggers (in this case, me) and scientists about the use of social media at conferences.
Fellow Australian-turned-UK-resident-scientist Cameron Neylon has now put together a handy set of slides for presenters to label both “blog-safe” and “no-blogging” presentations. The slides have a ccZero license and so are freely available for download and modification; the original icons can be found on Cameron’s Flickr account and Christopher Ross’ website.
Coming from information science, my default assumption at conferences or talks is that presenters want their information disseminated as far as possible, and services like twitter and the practice of liveblogging seem the obvious way to go for real time info, provided quotes and data are accurately attributed at the time of publication. I’ve twittered about the last two professional conferences I’ve attended, and subsequently provided my notes on those conferences as publicly available Google Docs (see my BookCamp Toronto 2009 and Internet Librarian 2009 notes).
But I understand some disciplines, particularly biomedical sciences, depend on keeping their data and findings within a limited sphere of people and publications. For example, this winter I attended a talk presented as part of the Health Informatics Grand Rounds series, which is sponsored by a variety of health science departments and institutions at the University of Michigan. The talk was done by John Wilbanks, Creative Commons VP and Science Commons ED, and was about mechanisms for sharing and storing data sets online, and how such mechanisms would affect how researchers think about what information belongs to them, how they collaborate with colleagues, etc. Sharing research data is a no-brainer for me, but I’m also not trying to beat my competitors to the cure for cancer, or secure research funding for the special thing that only my lab (at least I think it’s only my lab) does.
Developing a set of symbols, or a written statement, that tells viewers what can and can’t be discussed outside the original presentation forum is, I think, a step in the right direction, and will get people talking about the issue. But, for better or worse, I think we’re moving closer and closer toward a world where people assume that information they see and that they find important can and should be further disseminated.
What do you think?
I’m going to be moving web and mail hosts for all my domains sometime in the next few days, so there will be downtime. I’m very, very sorry. I know you need this blog to get through your day.
Slight change of plans: Selecting a different host, still moving, but probably less traumatic.
I had a fantastic time at BookCamp Toronto. Was honored and pleased to meet most of the organizers the night before, and to mingle with publishers, software developers, XMLers, and others. Also pleased to add quite a few book/tech nerds to my twitter feed and greader.
I’ve organized my toots and some other background info from the (un)conference in a google doc, for general consumption. Go see my notes.
On Friday morning I’ll be traveling with a colleague to parts north to attend BookCampToronto on Saturday. Sessions are being held at the UT iSchool, with the requisite happy hours and meetups. The organizers have appeared to have done an amazing job dealing with high demand, sponsorships, and venue updates. I’m excited to talk to other book and web nerds about the future of publishing, writing, and books in the DigitalAge™. Sounds like things should be well wired/wireless, so I look forward to tooting the events of the day.
After the conference I’m going to stay on for a couple days to visit a friend, then take the train most of the way home on Monday evening. I like trains.
(Speaking of trains, I bought another Kid Acne Rollin’ Stock toy today. I got a shark.)
