eG Foodblog: balmagowry - Back to the future....

[balmagowry]

Good morning - but this is not really the first post of the morning, not until I figure out whether or not it's weird to post breakfast before last night's dinner. I'm short of time right now, having a class to go to - will take camera with me, because after that I will be doing a few food errands.... I'll be back some time after 1:00 EDT.

Meanwhile, of course Jensen was right: the yogurt did set. Some time between 3:00 AM and 10:00 AM, is all I know. I'm remembering now that the last Erivan batch took longer than most - it must be that dainty all-acidophilus culture. Anyway, since I can't try the new yogurt for a few hours, it's a good thing I didn't use up all the starter yogurt.

Off to class - later.

[balmagowry]

Good morning - but this is not really the first post of the morning, not until I figure out whether or not it's weird to post breakfast before last night's dinner.

I can't believe I said anything so idiotic. Of course it isn't weird. Or rather, who cares if it's weird? This is the Time Travel Foodblog, isn't it??????

So -

(Mr. Boy is home today. Black --> )

as bleu would say... good morning.

[balmagowry]

Because there is a lot I must do outdoors, making hay while the sun shines and gathering rosebuds while I may and so on, I probably won't get to start on the really meaty posts until afterward. But I can give you a preliminary rundown of new activity so far, and a teaser menu of what's on the agenda.

First, of course, will be last night's dinner - a quintessential Lawn Guyland diner experience, complete with wisecracks and zealous food styling by The Boy.

There isn't much to say about today's breakfast, except as in progress at the moment....

The yogurt did set, but either it didn't like those extra milk solids or it went on incubating too long (well, I'm sorry, but I need some sleep!); anyway, the upshot is... I just don't like it. It has a thin, sour, weak taste and an unappealing runniness. (If fifi happens to be reading this and gets worried about the anomalous behavior of the yogurt, I remind her that the starter I'm using is unusual in that it has only acidophilus and none of the other, supposedly essential, bacteria like bulgaricus and whatever that other thingy is. So I imagine it can't be expected to work like normal yogurt cultures.)

That's OK - Luke loves it! I forgot to mention yesterday that I normally pour the whey on his kibble; now he will have his very own yogurt instead, at least until this quart runs out or becomes too disgusting to keep.

Lunch will be last night's leftovers: The Boy ordered way too much.

This morning after my class I went, camera in hand, to Sherry's, the local health food store, to inquire after Brown Cow yogurt; then to another local store for bread, fruit and milk. Copious pictures from both these excursions!

At some point during the week I'll take you on a little tour of Babylon's gastronomic resources - restaurants, markets, etc. - from the sublime to the ridiculous.

As for the rest of today - roses to prune, seedlings to move, germination to document, beds to dig. Some of that happens here, but the heavy labor is to be done in Gilgo, so I assume I'll be spending part of the afternoon there. If past experience is anything to go by, this may result in an invitation to stay to dinner - i.e., stay to cook dinner. Because of this I can't accurately predict dinner plans as yet. But I do have a fallback position, just in case.....

Let's see, what else? I have investigated the tide tables and weather forecasts for this week, and it looks as though a clamming attempt may be feasible toward Wednesday or Thursday. I always used to pride myself on being the first idiot in the water every spring; but I'm not sure I'm ready for that (or it's ready for me) just yet. We'll see.

Your boat looks like lots of fun. Are there nice places to explore with her near your home? Do you keep her in the water all year?

I'll get you a better picture of her at some point - she's no teak-decked beauty like yours but she does have lovely lines. Like my house she is a cosmetic disaster at the moment - the brightwork is a disgrace - but what the hell. Yes, she's lots of fun, weather helm, points high. Crucially for this part of the world, although she has a heavy keel she only draws 2'-11" - which is exactly the depth of the shallowest part of the Great South Bay. Which is where I sail her, mostly, and there's plenty of room to play. I am not a racer, but I would drop everything and cruise to hell and gone if I could. Just as well I can't. Some fantasies are meant to be fantasies. I can sail over to Gilgo, and have done so on occasion - wind permitting, this takes about 2 - 2-1/2 hours. Theoretically I keep her in the water two winters out of three - haul her for maintenance the third year. But alas, my beloved local mom-&-pop boatyard, the one conveniently visible from the window in front of me, has been taken over by a company that... doesn't DO sailboats - so she's been in for four years straight now and her bottom must be foul beyond belief. Must... find... new boatyard....

Will address your floor and Shtinky questions a little later - must go map out the rest of the day so the all-important dinner can be planned!

[Pan]

Well, this will be fun!

One question: Were you born on Lawn Guyland? 

Nope - in Nuova Iork itself. At what was then New York Hospital

I was also born in New York Hospital!

Your father conducted Broadway shows, or was it you who worked on Broadway?

[tanabutler]

Something is badly wonky with this thread when it loads. It lands on the yogurt photos and then scrolls madly, bouncing up and down like a golf ball in a tile bathroom. After about five seconds, it settles down, but never at the most recent post.

Did you break the internet, Lisa?

[Rachel Perlow]

That happens when a thread has a lot of photos. The text loads before the images, and then you end up not exactly where you last read, but close.

[bleudauvergne]

Well, this will be fun!

One question: Were you born on Lawn Guyland? 

Nope - in Nuova Iork itself. At what was then New York Hospital

I was also born in New York Hospital!

Your father conducted Broadway shows, or was it you who worked on Broadway?

Soul mates.

[Pan]

Well, this will be fun!

One question: Were you born on Lawn Guyland? 

Nope - in Nuova Iork itself. At what was then New York Hospital

I was also born in New York Hospital!

Your father conducted Broadway shows, or was it you who worked on Broadway?

Soul mates.

[balmagowry]

Did you break the internet, Lisa?

I broke it; I bought it.

Actually, I had noticed this too, and of course Rachel is right. I think the solution will be to break future posts down into shorter segments - maybe use fewer photos, too. At some point soon, BTW, I'm going to shift to storing photos elsewhere on the web and linking them in, because otherwise I'll eat up all my eG space in no time flat, at this rate. Don't know how that will affect performance, but we'll monitor the matter.

I was also born in New York Hospital!

Your father conducted Broadway shows, or was it you who worked on Broadway?

Small world, ain't it. It was my father who worked on Broadway; I only (much later) got as far as Off and/or Off-Off-Off.

Edited April 25, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[balmagowry]

The plan thus far: I've put off Gilgo till tomorrow; shall do some pruning and stuff here and otherwise dewote meself to bringing this monster up to date.

I find myself pondering the etiquette of the foodblog at every turn - there are so many things I'm tempted to incorporate but that wouldn't quite be fair game. So when in doubt I will put (or find) things elsewhere and link to them. Can't hurt the performance of the thread....

For instance, I just posted this on the Garage Sale thread. A lot of the stuff that turns up in my pictures is originally the product of garage-saling, so I'm kind of glad to have had a chance to pay tribute to that since, slave to the blog, I didn't go out of my way to look for bright-colored signs on telephone poles this morning.... Tomorrow, however, I may break down and check out a few, all in the interests of advancing the cause of bloggery. (Rum, bloggery and the lash... oh, never mind. )

[phaelon56]

A coffee nut I am.... a coffee snob I ain't. The Eight o'Clock roast in your pictures, Lisa, has for many years been the most consistent whole bean coffee generally available in supermarkets and IMHO it's quite often as good or better than much of the over-roasted dreck that Charbucks is hawking. Mixing a darker and a lighter roast in 50/50 proportions is actually not only acceptable - it often yields intriguing results that can't be duplicated in other ways. The same coffee varietals can yield markedly different character at differing roast levels. I think it's just grand that you and Mr. Boy™ have the dual coffee thing going on.

Ahhhh.... the family home on the water that we almost but didn't quite have (at least as a place to visit). My great aunt took early retirement from her position as a teacher at Julia Richmond School in da Bronx and eked out a living painting birds from her little cottage on the shore at East Patchogue, just up the road from you. Regrettably, due to poor estate planning, her heirs were responsible for such an enormous estate tax based on the value of the land (the cottage was ready to be knocked down at that point), that they had to sell it just to settle the estate. Good real estate decisions were not her forte - she also owned twenty acres of land that comprises what is now the center of Smithtown but was convinced by a "friend" to sell it for about $20K. A year later it changed hands again for a cool million $ or so....

On to the food - we're anxiously waiting!

[balmagowry]

Now that I've seen yours, I want a Shtinky.   I can just imagine sitting in a cafe, on a bus, in a museum, on a park bench, etc. and putting down observations with one of those.

It really is wonderful - it's hard for me to understand why this machine (the Toshiba Libretto 70C) never caught on in this country. Apparently it had a solid following in Japan, and Toshiba has continued to develop the machines for that market. I guess other people don't share my obsession with form factor. This should have been the successor to the original reporter's computer, the old Tandy 100 series. At fighting weight it comes in at just over 2 pounds (just under if you use the smaller battery, but for only an hour's worth of power I rarely bother), and until I started working more with graphics it did everything I could wish for. It's a P120, 32 MB RAM (its limit, alas), and I put in a 10-GB drive a couple of years ago.

Do your batteries last long?  Is that a Smart Card you have inthe drive there?  Do you put it to recharge every day when you get home?  I don't know about you, Lisa, but I type about seven times faster than I can write.  So I rarely ever write things out except in letters to my mother and in my idea books. 

The big battery (pictured; protruding slightly when the machine is closed) will go 3-4 hours. I have a spare, and I have power adapters sprinkled all over the house and cars. The card is a WiFi; wherever I go around the house - or if I'm near a Starbucks - I have broadband internet; if around the house I'm also connected into the rest of our network, which makes it easy to back up files to the big computer, etc. Yes, I too use one computer or the other for real writing; couldn't possibly blog in longhand! In some situations I don't take Shtinky with me - I carry the paper notebook in that picture and scribble abbreviated notes in it, especially in the garden, as I don't care if it gets a bit mucky. Then when I transcribe the scribbles to the computer, that's when they get expanded into prose. (The one exception to all this is verse - somehow I'm used to doing that in longhand and in my head. As, for instance, in, ahem, this case, said she, modestly. The typefaces and the faked-up image of the saint with the egg were afterthoughts; the sonnet was complete in my head before I wrote it in longhand, corrected it, then transcribed it. Something about the act of writing with a pen is conducive to versification, I find.)

I think though, sometimes it is the incubation period between when you observe something and when you write it down that makes things gel.  I guess a Shtinky for me would be like a sketchbook, where I could immediately collect vignettes, and working in an equipped studio would be the work on the big computer.  I like to experience or think about something, sleep on it, and then sit down clear headed to write it and develop it the next day.

Yes, that's not unlike my progression from scribbled notes to frenzied typing. In my case, however, Shtinky often covers both bases.

What exactly do use Shtinky for?  I think it would be a very good research tool.  One thinks about portable computers and their getting stolen in libraries.  But who in their right mind would possibly want to steal yours?    

Anyone with small fingers and good priorities. I bought Shtinky on eBay in 1999 so he could accompany me to Morocco (he was already "obsolete" by then!), and he's been traveling with me everywhere ever since. Into the city for trips to clients or libraries; anywhere out of town. One year I did all my taxes (corporate and personal) on a flight to Denver; I have to confess that for two lecture gigs last year I was still so deeply discombobulated (one of them was the day after my mother's memorial!) that I didn't finish writing out my lecture notes until I was in the car on the way to the gig (we had a printer with us too, on that occasion) or, in the second case, on the plane to New Orleans (hm, we brought a printer then too). When I was still working with the ballet company I traveled with Shtinky and a printer and did all my cues, plots, paperwork etc. on Shtinky - even the programs, on one insane occasion. The Borgias article was written on Shtinky - some of it here, some in Massachusetts. Shtinky, to me, is continuity.

He has one PCMCIA slot - not CardBus, alas, which occasionally makes for trouble - but he can therefore connect to the CF card from my camera, any kind of network, a CDRW drive, etc. He also has a port replicator with all the "heritage" connections, so he can drive a big monitor or a parallel printer. Weirdly, considering when he was made, he does have InfraRed but will never have USB, one of his few really serious drawbacks.

But very importantly, We have the same parquet floors.  That is just incredible. 

Soul mates...? I bet yours is in better condition than mine. Does yours have inlay around the edges?

I also simply adore your kitchen floor (or is it the pantry?) and great wooden countertops.

Thank you. The floor in question appears in the kitchen and both bathrooms, one of which adjoins the kitchen and occasionally (like when a bag of dog food hasn't yet been decanted) does double duty as an auxiliary pantry. The countertop... I wish it were countertops! It is one decentish little piece of butcher-block counter adjoining many feet of elderly linoleum-covered counter. You can't expect me not to be a little selective in choosing my backgrounds, can you?

Edited April 25, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[balmagowry]

A coffee nut I am....  a coffee snob I ain't.  The Eight o'Clock roast in your pictures, Lisa, has for many years been the most consistent whole bean coffee generally available in supermarkets and IMHO it's quite often as good or better than much of the over-roasted dreck that Charbucks is hawking.  Mixing a darker and a lighter roast in 50/50 proportions is actually not only acceptable - it often yields intriguing results that can't be duplicated in other ways. The same  coffee varietals can yield markedly different character at differing roast levels.  I think it's just grand that you and Mr. Boy™ have the dual coffee thing going on.

Vindicated!!! Thank you, Owen. We've been buying Eight O'Clock since it came in only one flavor and was only sold at the A&P (gee, I must be old), back before dutch conglomerates started owning all the old stores anyone ever had. It gives me a comfy feeling to know that I can still get it and it's still good.

What a shame about the Patchogue house! Patchogue is a nice day-sail from here....

Yes, indeed, on to the food - and here I've been guiltily blabbing on about computers, no less. Tsk, tsk, shame on me.

[balmagowry]

Interlude: Friday afternoon.

Home from the gym. Grab a glass of this stuff:

They sell it at the market that I'm going to - or should I say went to? sheesh, this time travel is confusing - tomorrow or rather today, i.e. Saturday. I've become rather fond of it. It needs some fiddling and futzing - on the one hand it's too thick and intense and on the other it lacks definition, so I usually squeeze a little lemon into it, and put in enough ice to dilute it some. Refreshing.

Then straight upstairs to... BLOG!

Here is Murphy, on my chair - the same perch on which I first presented him.

The shot is taken over my left shoulder as I sit in the chair. When my old familiar chair died, my chief criterion for choosing a new one was that it be as Murphy-friendly as the other - i.e. have a straight horizontal surface at the top of the back so that he could perch as he liked.

This chair is perhaps a little too Murphy-friendly. Not only can he perch up top, he can insinuate himself into the space directly behind me and take up, for a relatively small cat, an absolutely amazing portion of the seat.

Next: Dinner at the Diner, than which nothing could be finer, unless it's maybe... well, when the Diner is what you want, why then the Diner is what you want.

[EDIT for clarity and to correct a typo]

Edited April 25, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[tanabutler]

Soul mates...? I bet yours is in better condition than mine. Does yours have inlay around the edges?

I thought you meant your soul is in worse condition. Does it have inlay around the edges?

[balmagowry]

Friday night: Dinner at the Diner!

The Delphi Diner, West Islip, on a chill rainy night. A great refuge for late hours. Or any time.

The Sumpawam Creek, in front of my house, is the eastern border of Babylon Village and indeed Babylon Town. T'other side of the creek is the swanky part of West Islip. For those who are familiar with such things, we are about four blocks south of Montauk Highway. The diner, on Montauk Highway itself, is within easy walking distance, but this is not the weather in which to walk it.

(For those who aren't familiar with such things, I should perhaps explain that Montauk Highway is hardly what most people think of as a highway - it is, in fact, our version of Main Street USA. To be po-yetic for a moment, think of the South Shore towns and villages as a series of pearls - Montauk Highway is the string. And as it passes through each of those villages it undergoes a temporary name change; for a few miles of Nassau County it's called Merrick Road, but in most places, including this one, it is called "Main Street." And it looks it, too - in fact, Bablylon Village's Main Street looks rather like that of Peyton Place. But I digress, don't I.)

The Delphi is in many ways an absolutely quintessential Lawn Guyland diner; like most of them, at some point in the past 20 years or so it has been gentrified - upgraded from a frowsty relic of the 60s into a chrome-and-neon post-prom palace. Also like many of its kind, it either is or purports to be run by Greeks - hence the oracular name and logo.

It has the usual HUGE menu, through every passion ranging, half good old family favorites, half delusions of grandeur.

Delusions of grandeur, however, are not to be confused with delusions of adequacy. The Delphi is more than adequate: it varies from excellent to stellar. One night, for instance, I went out on a limb and ordered the broiled veal chop; to my astonishment I was presented with a piece of meat I can only describe as beautiful inside and out. A revelation. A major, major chop, thick and tender and perfectly cooked, and of a flavor that wouldn't disgrace (uh-oh, I'm really behind the times here - don't know from the current popular places - had better play it safe-ish) the Four Seasons. No, seriously, I swear! Had the veal chop again on a couple of subsequent occasions: consistently, just as good. Does someone know someone with a truck? Gotta wonder.

I haven't tried their steaks, but they also do well with pork chops and hamburgers, though of course I haven't yet been able to persuade 'em to serve the latter as rare as I like 'em. Sandwiches and salads, good, fresh. French fries? Just right. Seriously excellently just right. Crisp edges, good flavor, not greasy.

There's a page of fancy pasta dishes that I can take or leave, usually. Some of that stuff tends to get a bit overdone - especially if there's shrimp involved. And OK, the turkey they use in sandwiches is sometimes a bit dry. And their fried chicken is a little greasy, maybe. But I know I can walk in hungry and come out happy, and there's a lot to be said for that.

And oh no - even here there is now a low-carb insert!

I considered getting a turkey club for the sake of the Gullet - you can't get much more typical than a turkey club - but mindful of that dry turkey I decided instead to investigate the Greekness of the Greek part of the menu.

Behold the Delphi Gyro. Looks like the meat really is cut from an actual gyro, but it's then browned. Don't know whether this is in the interests of making it more appetizing or because, perhaps, the gyro isn't necessarily set up to gyrate as it sposeta in front of a heat element. (That's why they have those big opaque double doors to the kitchen....) I don't know how much demand they get for it here - might not be practical to do it the way the echt Greek joints do. Whatever - it's good. The tomatoes are a bit pallid, of course, but everything else is fine, the tzatziki nice and zingy.

Before I move on to what The Boy ordered, I gotta take a quick run out to the market before it closes, something for tonight's dinner. Since I wanted to try posting in shorter segments anyway for bandwidth's sake, shall post this now, and then when I get back I'll put up Dinner at the Diner, Part II.

To be continued....

[EDIT to add clarification re Montauk Highway]

Edited April 25, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[balmagowry]

Soul mates...? I bet yours is in better condition than mine. Does yours have inlay around the edges?

I thought you meant your soul is in worse condition. Does it have inlay around the edges?

Probably. In "contrasting colors of telephone... black and white... white."

I wouldn't know, though - I haven't been face to face with my soul yet, I don't think.

I might even mean that. Or I might just be being glib.

[balmagowry]

OK, I'm back. And I stumbled across something exciting for tonight's dessert - something so exciting that... I'm going to stay infuriatingly linear and not tell you about it until I reach that point in the narrative. Heh heh. Gotta keep 'em in suspense.

More diner adventure coming up.

[Jinmyo]

balmagowry, your recent graphics are redxing on me. Perhaps it's just me.

[balmagowry]

When you hear that whistle blowin' eight to the bar,

Then you know that Lindenhurst is not very far -

Shovel all that coal in,

Gotta keep a-rollin' -

Woo-woo, Central Islip, there you are!

DINNER AT THE DINER, PART TWO

The Boy is determined to do his share for eGulletude. Brave soul, he orders both

the Sliced Steak Wrap (and do please look at those fries - aren't they just the beautiful quintessence of fry-hood?)

and the small Chef Salad with vinaigrette on the side. "Wait! Wait!" he says as I shoot a picture of the latter. "Wait until your food stylist has made it GLISTEN with vinaigrette!"

Moments later, it does indeed glisten with vinaigrette. The vinaigrette itself is unexciting, actually just oil and vinegar, kinda heavy on the oil, with nothing to bind or season it. The rest of the salad, however, is good standard fare, nicely presented

(The Boy, food stylist to the stars, wanted you to see it in cross-section too), everything fresh, and a lot of food for the money, I might add.

Something about that scallion talks to me.... I'm not at all sure what it's saying, though. Just as well, I'm sure.

Ooops. I just realized something:

That serrated knife... they must have meant for me to eat this gyro like a civilized grown-up person, right?

Guess what?

I didn't.

'Long about this time, The Boy starts showing signs of impatience, signalling to the waitress. You saw how good those fries looked, right? You saw how unfairly they were all congregated on his plate, right? All I did was try to remedy - very gradually - a patent injustice. Waitress comes along. "Hi, what can I get you?" He replies, "Could you please bring the lady another order of fries, so that I can have some?"

Well, I never!

But just look at the darlings...!

After he has extracted his usurious pound of flesh, there are still enough to satisfy even me. What a wise Boy he is, after all!

Good things, even this one, come to an end at last.

Either The Boy's eyes were bigger than his stomach

or he was prudently thinking about tomorrow's lunch.

While he deals with the check

I linger behind for a moment,

to get a final shot of the place, including the bar.

And then out we go again, into the dripping night.

You leave the Pennsylvania Station at a quarter to four,

You read a magazine and then you're reachin' Bellmore,

Dinner in the diner,

Nothin' could be finer....

Edited April 25, 2004 by balmagowry (log)

[balmagowry]

balmagowry, your recent graphics are redxing on me. Perhaps it's just me.

They ARE? Uh-oh. They come up fine for me, but maybe I'm the only one who sees them. Anyone else?

I'm assuming these are the ones that start with the Friday afternoon interlude - they're all stored off-site and linked. If this is really a problem I can bring them over to ImageGullet... only it'll take time.

Jinmyo, would you mind trying something? Just click on this, which is the page where the images are stored, to see if it loads for you - and let me know. I want to try to figure out where in the process this problem is actually occurring.

[mags]

Well, this will be fun!

One question: Were you born on Lawn Guyland? 

Nope - in Nuova Iork itself. At what was then New York Hospital (and is now something like Columbia-Presbyterian-New-York-Cornell-and-its-Sisters-and-its-Cousins-and-its-Aunts, Esquire, Unlimited), and into a household on 89th and West End. I'm a conductor's brat, so the first 10 years or so of my life saw us moving around a good bit (Baltimore, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, wherever the major gigs were), but always gravitating back, in-between, to NYC and/or environs - that being where the family, the new-immigrant roots, and the Broadway show jobs were.

Ahhhhh, we were about two blocks apart; I grew up on 90th and Riverside. And at about the same time, if the avatar is anything to go by -- as a birth-date, I mean.

[balmagowry]

Ahhhhh, we were about two blocks apart; I grew up on 90th and Riverside.  And at about the same time, if the avatar is anything to go by -- as a birth-date, I mean.

Cool! My uncle & family lived at 88th and West End - and I subsequently lived at 106th & Riverside and at 90th & Columbus... there's something about that neighborhood, I guess.

As to the birth-date, hell, I don't see any reason to be coy about it: 1957.

Close?

[phaelon56]

No red X's here - my Internet is not broken (yet). Gotta love those Greek diners (and yes they are typically owned by Greek families). Let me guess.... do they have a sort of glass pie and cake case that's circular, visible when you enter, as a way to plant the seed for a subconscious desire to order dessert?

[paul o' vendange]

Tomorrow, however, I may break down and check out a few, all in the interests of advancing the cause of bloggery. (Rum, bloggery and the lash... oh, never mind. )

Keeping with the nautical thing, are we o' scribe?

Paul