Eastern Standard

I went to Eastern Standard Saturday night. It is an American/French food restaurant located not far from Fenway Park. I had an appetizer of bone marrow and an entree of lobster risotto. The bone marrow, though good, was ginormous. Three full chunks of bone (one of which was significantly wider at the bottom) with 4 toast points. By the last one, I was just piling the marrow on, desperately trying to balance it. I think that if I had a regular slice of bread, I could have covered it in marrow 1 inch thick. I had no idea that you could get full on bone marrow. (I only made it maybe 1/2 way through the risotto and had to take the rest home. It tasted much better the next day when I wasn't just trying to gut it out.)

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Today in Weather

It was hot and clear when I went to the gym this morning. When I got out, it was noticeably cooler. It is hazy in all directions. There is the smell of smoke too, but the haze is everywhere -- way too pervasive to be a local fire. Ash from Iceland? Smoke from fire somewhere? Crazy ideas. I convinced myself that it must be offshore fog rolling in, but checking the weather shows I was right the first time: wildfires in Canada. Unbelievable.

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Eurovision 2010

Germany won the Eurovision Song Contest this Saturday with this song, "Satellite" sung by 19-year old Lena. I didn't see it, of course, but it's notable for 2 reasons. One, it runs counter to the trend of domination by Eastern European countries. Although there have been recent wins by Finland and Norway, one might have thought that the old school Eurovision countries -- e.g., France, Germany -- might never win again. The second unusual thing is that the song is a genuine pop hit. Here's the song (not the live performance):

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Mangosteen

I know I ought to be blogging about Taiwan and Japan, but this weekend Sean found mangosteens on sale at the Chinese grocery store. Banned from importation into the U.S. until 2007, I'd read about the tropical fruit online but never seen it or tasted it fresh. (By the way, I have had canned mangosteen which was fairly gross and I can now report tastes nothing like mangosteen at all.) To eat, cut the leathery skin until you can pull off a hemisphere and then use your fingers or a small fork to ease out the white segments. The fruit is very soft (softer than any other fruit I can think of) and there's not a lot to eat (the larger segments have big seeds that you spit out). The descriptions of its flavor that I'd read said citrus. After eating one, it is really hard to describe. Sweet and citrus-y, yes, and it has a vague kiwi flavor but sweet and mild, with no acid-y tang. It was really good and I can see why people love them.

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Jetlagged

I landed in Boston Sunday night and I'm still very jetlagged. Took-the-6:30AM-train-to-work jetlagged. When I first got back, I was sleepy in the afternoons and awake in the mornings. I've now progressed to tired and can sleep in the afternoons and tired and cannot sleep in the mornings. Fantastic. Anyway, I wrote a couple of short book reviews on my goodreads account yesterday and I'll start working on some vacation posts soon.

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