some boston/cambridge-related links worth noting: heyletsgo.com: looking for something to do? check this site out. list of MA farmers' markets: andy has told me about the cambridgeport one which is just down the street. will def. be going soon and reporting back. bostonist.com: one of the better boston blogs i've come across. arts, food, shows, etc. bradleysalmanac: another local. some fantastic live mp3s (inc. pinback's latest boston show), constantly updated. certainly, sir: a MA-based electronic duo that mike turned me onto. their site has a nice interface (a very media lab feel) w/ a lot of audio (inc. a track w/ ben gibbard on vox). will be checking them out this thurs. at 10 p.m. at the enormous room.

voter exhaustion I didn't vote in the primaries this month. This is the first election I've skipped since I've moved to California. I've probably voted more in the past two years than I have in my entire life. Not because I didn't used to vote much, but because they make us vote all the fucking time. I moved here in the fall of 2003, and I had to vote three times in the first three months. Gubernatorial recall, regular election, mayoral runoff. And everytime you go, it's a total ordeal if you haven't prepped in advance. There's the candidates, but then there's a slew of city, regional, and state initiatives with all sort of letters and numbers. We have to vote on things like parking lots and seismic retrofit and library funding and pre-k classes and minimum wages and reversing previous initiatives and the number of people that sit on some municipal board and who gets to appoint them. There are initiatives that go together, so if you vote yes on 68 it only makes sense to vote no on 70, but the ballet doesn't say that, or 71 has to pass in order for the result of 74 to even be considered. Don't I elect people to decide these things for me? Am I supposed to trust my fellow citizens to make the "right" decision on something as specific as how many people should sit on some obscure board? I don't have time to really research these initiatives, should I believe that other voters do? Do elected leaders do anything besides put initiatives on the ballot? The governator has been personally responsible for one or two trips to the ballot box, can't he solve his own political problems without getting me involved? I'm tired of democracy.

finally, something i cooked A while back I came across this recipe for "absorption pasta". I really liked the thought of not boiling a big pot of water. Turns out my flea market fry pan and the lid of a pot i got for free on freecycle sort of fit together and work well for this sort of thing.. Simmering the pasta in chicken broth makes it so yummy and delicious, although I have to admit that the smell of chicken broth makes me think Campbell's chicken noodle soup. I sliced up some summer squash and grated some carrots from my csa farm box and had a delicious bowl of this for dinner:

Is there a summary of all the $25 and under reviews in the nytimes? I'm off to new york again in a couple weeks and will have a lot of daytime hours and meals to kill. Also, I need London suggestions for an August trip, but I'll bug you about those later.

a rare splurge life changes when you go back to school. especially if you're a homebody to begin with, it's that much harder to actually go out, and when your boyfriend moves to the east coast and then on top of that you're basically a cheapskate, it's impossible to cajole yourself to spend money on anything but plane tickets. but now that class is officially over (and the unending years of research begin), I feel like I'm about to rejoin the world of the living and drinking and spending. To celebrate the end of our first year, a few of my classmates and I dressed up and went to frisson. see, I love a good restaurant. but I don't know a single good restaurant in SF where it's not the place you would fit in better in jeans than a cocktail dress. so I enlisted the help of tablehopper, who will offer a personalized recommendation in exchange for a recap of the evening. so I sent her the following email. you'll have to excuse the enthusiasm, i might still be reeling from the studying.

Frisson was absolutely fabulous!! It was exactly what we were looking for. The decor is nice without being too dated (yet) and there was a DJ spinning pretty good music. I was pleased to see they had a bottle of (inexpensive) prosecco on the menu, which we had in lieu of champagne. I had the en fuego cocktail, which was based on a pomegranate tequila -- yum! Not very strong though, which was good as I had to drive everyone home. My whiskey-loving friend was pretty pleased with her manhattan which also had pomegranate in it. It was good enough she said she would come back just for that. We started with a few appetizers -- the japanese sea bream sashimi (even some of the sushi-virgins liked it), pork croquettes (yummy mashed potatoes), artichokes, and scallops. I think the scallops came in a dollop of some sort of creamy aioli which was okay but not amazing. The entrees were universally loved. I had the short ribs, which just fell apart when I put my fork in. Personally, I think I had the best thing on the menu, but I bet the rest of my table would beg to differ. They were served with a puree that had vanilla in it -- the flavors were unexpected and stunning. I kept getting everyone else to try the vanilla.. Also at the table: duck breast, salmon, rack of lamb, ribeye. I think the portion size was great, although if I had an entire appetizer and entree, I might not have had room for dessert. So up until this point, everything came really quickly. Maybe we were just having too much fun so time passed quickly -- but then we ordered dessert and maybe 20 minutes went by with no sign of food. Eventually the waitress apologized about the delay and told us that our desserts would be on the house, and we would be sent a bottle of dessert wine! (This kind of thing makes me always wish that I had ordered multiple desserts! Is that terrible?) They brought us 6 glasses of dessert wine, of three each of two different types. Again, I'm pretty sure I ordered the most delicious thing on the menu -- the chocolate and cardamom pot de creme. It tasted roughly like what you'd expect gingerbread to taste like in heaven. And it came with these cookie sandwiches with the most delicious icing inside. I also snagged a bite of the chocolate souffle (the sorbets accompanying it were delicious), the blackberry bread pudding, and the warm cookies and milkshake. Oh, for a moment I thought I was hallucinating and re-experiencing my dessert, but then I remembered that I'm baking banana bread. It wasn't nearly as expensive as we feared -- of course, we didn't have to pay for dessert. It came out to about $60/person, although in retrospect I wished I had tipped on top of the included gratuity since we had such a fabulous time. I hope that doesn't make me a terrible person.

somehow even though winnie's been out of boston for the past four years i still haven't managed to catch up to all of her eating escapades while she was here. her article for the tech of favorites provides a handy checklist: you too can take advantage of her extensive legwork and skip the bad stuff. her list led me directly to wang’s fast food in somerville (went a few weeks ago. will post pics soon.) and: punjabi dhaba (hampshire street, inman square): more out of the way than the hundreds of other indian places in cambridge, but well worth it. homey fare but some of the most savory indian food i've had in boston. i had the "vegetable special" which included biryani and a curry, and andy had the aloo gobhi. both were just about the perfect level of spiciness, and the chutney was nice and chunky and flavorful. definitely has jumped near the top of my list of indian eateries. in other food news: hit via matta (back bay) for the third time. andy scored with his "Poached Shrimp with white beans, arugula, and bottarga" and rabbit tortelli. i had the roasted cauliflower which was one of the best things i've had this year: breaded and cheesed to perfection. my buffalo mozzarella with grilled peppers was forgettable. i was hoping the crispy eggplant would be as perfect as when i first had it, but it was disappointing for the 2nd time; this time around it was overdone. service was decidedly subpar, with the waiter neglecting to even bother lighting the candle on the table. border cafe (harvard sq): i'd been before, but somehow i'd gotten it stuck in my mind that this place was about on par with a friday's or the cactus club on boylston (maybe b/c it's always so crowded), but when andy and i dropped in for a laid-back meal this past monday afternoon we were both pleasantly surprised. hot chips, fresh veggies, and a nicely done black bean and corn empanada with a sauce that, while not particularly deep, didn't at all wear out its welcome. not to mention attentive service. one of the few times a place was distinctly better than i remembered. will def. put it back on my list of restaurants worth going to. also, the wrap was apparently bought out by a company called boloco. the menu is pretty much the same, but when bess and i hit the one on mass ave by berklee this past weekend it was tangibly improved. fresher, less greasy ingredients meant a fresher wrap that didn't leave you with the sickly/gross feeling that the old place often did. and worth mentioning (or if i've mentioned it before, worth mentioning again) is shalimar food and spaces (central sq), not to be confused with the restaurant which is only a few stores away on the other side of the street. what's notable about this store is the lunch counter they have in the back. for something like $7.50 you can get a veg. special which includes rice, two vegetable dishes (e.g. curry, saag, mutter paneer, eggplant), a samosa, and a mango lassi. they also have meat specials for you carnivores. not the most memorable indian food in boston, but when you're jonesin' for some indian and you don't want to wait to stuff your face, this is perfect. they also have a whole case of sweets: several kinds of gulab jamun and a host of pink, white, yellow, diamond-shaped, and similarly unidentifiable confections. every once in a while andy and i get a random selection of these, and although a lot are sickeningly sweet, some are worth getting again.