get in my head has officially moved to wordpress: thatswhatyouthink.wordpress.com. please update your bookmarks! this page will no longer be updated, and although all the posts have been moved over to the new blog you will still be able to access them here. thanks.

another movie roundup:

the apartment (1960): one of shirley maclaine's big hits. a classic, but didn't really do anything for me. very weird to see fred macmurray (of flubber (the original) fame) as the baddie.

babes in toyland (1961): blast from the past. fun disney flick, apparently based on a victor herbert operetta. not one of the best, esp. if you don't have the added nostalgia factor, but there are some good moments/scenes inc. annette funicello as mary quite contrary.

chung hing sam lam (1994) (chungking express): wong kar wai. nice cinematography. in two distinct sections, one dramatic and one more comedic, with nothing really connecting the two. enjoyable, though, and i'd watch it again.

the devil wears prada (2006): fun summer movie. as most critics have pointed out: meryl streep lifts this up from the dreck it could've been. i couldn't decide how much anne hathaway was annoying me, though.

heisei tanuki gassen pompoko (1994) (the raccoon war): somewhat trippy studio ghibli flick (miyazaki was one of the producers). typically japanese quirkiness with some raunchy humor and a fairly downer ending.

howards end (1992): entertaining enough and has emma thompson in an academy award-winning role. not quite a keeper though.

i can hear the sea (umi ga kikoeru) (1993) (tv): another studio ghibli flick. this one's about a girl from tokyo forced to live in a small town because of her parent's divorce. has some nice insights into adolescence, particularly at the end, but didn't really resonate with me.

kind hearts and coronets (1949): alec guiness flick in which he plays multiple roles. fairly slow with little tension.

the muppet movie (1979): the first muppet movie. fairly slow and a slew of celebrity cameos that if you weren't around at the time are fairly unrecognizable, but some great scenes esp. with ms. piggy, kermit, and fozzy.

notorious (1946): hitchcock suspense classic. nice performances by ingrid bergman, cary grant, and claude rains, although the ending is a bit abrupt.

the palm beach story (1942): another highly entertaining preston sturges flick. not quite as memorable as some of his others, but still worth watching.

passport to pimlico (1949): odd little british flick about a village that finds an ancient charter that declares them to be an independent country separate from britain and the chaos that ensues. entertaining, but doesn't really move beyond the premise.

thelma & louise (1991): a classic, and still fairly novel today as a female "buddy movie". not always the most convincing, but a good direction (ridley scott) and a good pair of leads.

top hat (1935): fun astaire and rogers movie. wasn't much more memorable than the others to me, although apparently people single it out as the best.

whisper of the heart (mimi wo sumaseba) (1995) : once again miyazaki completely captures childhood in all its confusion, enthusiasm, and innocence. a truly beautiful film. this is on the level of classics like citizen's kane or all about eve but all the more amazing because it's a "kids" movie (although i imagine it's prob. too slow for a lot of kids, american at least). no fantasy elements, but completely enchanting.

today was the first i heard about nautical antiques, pinback's "selection of b-sides and outtakes", apparently coming out tomorrow. spin.com has a small article about it. hmm. i guess i'll have to get it ...

w/ my resurgence of nintendo obsession i've been thinking about starting a video game blog ... and it looks like it's finally happened. check out: video games rock where you can read all about how cool pokemon on game boy is. (in case you were wondering, geodude is the name of the coolest pokemon.) of more particular interest is the fact that i chose wordpress over blogger. although as far as i can tell you can't really edit the templates they provide, this is far outweighed by the benefit of having categories and sub-categories for your posts so readers can filter your blog by their interest. and the tags are used by blog search engines (some at least). also, wordpress has RSS feeds for posts as well as comments. i haven't looked too much into their features for group blogs, but they look good. so how about it, winnie and foo -- should we move our little house to greener pastures?

okay it's time -- bring on the London eats suggestions! (also seems like the margin problems resolved themselves.)

parsleyed tomatoes with cucumber raita

I'm doing a three month internship which is much too far away from my house -- the commute is long by car and longer by transit/bike. this means i come home and pretty much am too exhausted to cook. but i did manage to sneak this one in over the weekend. summer csa box is amazing. this week: tomato(e?)s, basil, squash, green beans, onions, watermelon, potatoes, walnuts. corn is taking the week off. (did i break the format by trying to blog from flickr? suddenly the left margin is missing)

two miscellany: carl posted an interesting survey of health care in massachusetts the new york times ran an article on the other big topic everyone seems to be talking about (the first being local vs. organic), and enlightened us on what you can currently expect if you want to use vegetable oil to run your car.

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.

complete and utter miscellany Fried chicken, fast food.. got to hold down the low end of the blog. I have a fried chicken obsession that is developing. Fried chicken used to mean Roy Rogers (back in the day when there were 2 or 3 Roy Rogers within as many blocks in Ardmore, PA) and then KFC. KFC is just too greasy and then they are always also Taco Bells and that smell! That smell of grease is just sometimes too powerful, I can't actually go inside. Powell's chicken in the Fillmore was a new find thanks to a fellow classmate. But I think their chicken (and fried okra) is just too salty for me. So then I tried Hard Knox Cafe down the street from me -- for $9 you get enough food for two meals. I wasn't super impressed by their collard greens or rice and beans, but their mac and cheese and their corn muffins are delicious. It's a funny little place, Southern joint run by asians. Recently I went to Popeye's for the first time. Y U M. It wasn't nearly as greasy as KFC tends to be, and it had that particular spicy kick that you can only get from chain fast food. However, when you reheat their chicken in the microwave, it loses its crunch and becomes very KFC-like. Next time I'll try the oven reheat. On other fast food -- are there other chains that emulate the In-And-Out model? Fresh ingredients, cheap barebones menu, and good pay? It's so successful out here I don't know why everyone isn't doing it -- and it's cheaper than McD's?? And naturally the one closest to me is in the same parking lot as Krispy Kreme. Talk about a heart killer. YUM. I've discovered the flea market -- apparently the one remaining flea market within city limits. This weekend for $4 I acquired an old Le Creuset frying pan and some measuring spoons. Pancakes come out spectacularly on cast iron. Has anyone used emusic? I signed up for the 50-free-download trial and it's fabulous. Wait what's this? I just found a link for 100 free downloads. Maybe I'll have to cancel and resign up.

first off, this has got to be one of the weirdest food-related sites i've ever seen. this project will give you an idea of what it's all about. tasty ... somewhat recently seen ... The Lady Eve (1941) preston sturges continues to impress. a popular auteur in his day (often writing the films he directed), he isn't as generally known nowadays as he should be. in this film, like his others, characters do things just a bit differently then you would expect them to in a film, but their actions are emotionally believable and oftentimes thought-provoking. his "romantic comedies" are what every romantic comedy should aspire to be: literate, witty, thoughtful, and memorable. definitely recommended. Sons of the Desert (1933) laurel and hardy flick. andy found a good L&H collection. this was the longest of the bunch (a bit more than an hour) but still packed with gags (including a scene where laurel sneaks bites out of fruit from a bowl at ollie's house only to find out that they were made of wax). hadn't seen any L&H before, and they're classics that are still funny today and def. worth watching. particular favorite moment was in "another fine mess" in which laurel and hardy somehow find themselves pretending to own a mansion, with ollie pretending to be the millionaire owner and laurel forced to pretend to be both the butler and the maid. Kurenai no buta (1992) (Porco Rosso) working my way through the miyazaki canon. as usual, miyazaki's obsession with flying and his anti-war preachiness feels overly familiar, but his animation is still thrilling and his characters are still completely endearing. this one, with a wonderfully improbable story about a pig pilot and his adventures, has jumped near the top of my list of favorites and makes me want to go back and re-watch the others. and although i know winnie isn't a fan of american dubbed voices, michael keaton does a great job as porco. i've ordered the 6-disc chinese set that winnie has (legit release i think, w/ 2 movies on each disc), which, having come out several years ago, lacks the american voices and extras of the more recent disney 2-disc releases, but will still be great. oh, and david ogden stiers continues to amaze me. he's done cogsworth and the narrator in beauty and the beast and the governor in pocahontas, but here he plays a wacky grandfather. The King of Comedy (1983) de niro impresses as a geeky, irritating wannabe stand-up comedian who, along with sandra bernhard, worships late night impresario jerry lewis to the point of stalking him. not a comedy, and not as visceral as it could've/should've been, but has its moments mostly thanks to the acting and the direction by scorsese. Young Frankenstein (1974) mel brooks movie that should've been way funnier than it was. cloris leachman was amazing though as the housekeeper, and the other two female leads were also pretty funny. skip this. Shimotsuma monogatari (2004) (Kamikaze Girls) if you like amelie i think you'll like this. this has the same sort of quirky humor, although the morals are a bit looser. the protagonist is an aloof daydreaming girl who's obsessed with wearing rococo clothes, while the girl that intrudes on her life is in a biker gang. has the larger-than-life characters and stylized action and reactions that i've been loving from reading manga lately. def. recommended. To the Manor Born (1979) another classic british TV comedy. this one has a widowed aristocrat forced to leave her beloved manor, only to see it bought by a supermarket mogul. a riot of class humor ensues. brisk pace, some good one-liners, and engaging leads make this worth watching (although andy has to explain things to me every other minute, like how to spell "fforbes-hamilton" which is supposed to be with two small "f"'s. yes, those brits are strange).

i know everyone's heard this quote by now:

"I'm the decider, and I decide what's best," Mr. Bush said in the Rose Garden. "And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

but it really, really bothers me that our "president" always sounds like he's a 6 year old on a playground.

as some of you may know, andy and i finally got around to going to radius for a certain special day on a fairly quiet friday evening (which sound like is typical for them). i hope winnie appreciates these stealthy pics i took (whilst trying not to feel like a tourist). i suppose i should start by saying that overall we were both underwhelmed. very solid execution, but nothing wowed us. here's the pornographic play-by-play: amuse bouche #1: tiny roasted cauliflower + something green (bad memory, sorry -- maybe mint?) + two tiny bits of kumquat. simply lovely. andy's version had shrimp instead of the kumquat. amuse bouche #2: two bits of tempura. mine were both tofu-esque. andy's was shrimp (he thinks) and sweet potato. my first course (L to R): liquid pee, i mean, pea. very strange (not quite in a good way), but interesting. half as much would have been plenty. then pea greens with marcona almonds and grapefruit (a bit OD'ed on the peas by then and i'm not big on salads anyway). "toasted" asparagus with a nice sauce. mushroom with a puff pastry, reminescent of the wellington i had at hamersley's but miles away in terms of quality. the pastry was nice and dry and just the right density for forking into, although the mushrooms were more creamy where i would have much preferred savory. andy's first course: rabbit roulade wrapped in bacon with grapefruit glazed salsify on a puree of something green (sorry again) with a zucchini blossom dipped in a gooey cheese and fried. andy gave a solid A to this one. my second course was a rosemary-infused spaetzle with baby carrots and something in the onion family. had some nicely browned bits. fairly intense rosemary if you're a fan of it (which i'm not particularly). again, i wasn't so impressed with this. instead of a subtle flavor in each bite it was more like in this (and most of the other courses), the accumulation of flavor got to the point where you didn't quite want to finish it and in between courses you had a really strong aftertaste (which andy said he could taste simultaneously with everything by the end of the evening). radius was kind enough, however, to not leave andy courseless and gave him a serving of their mint gnocchi (with peas! talk about exploiting the fruits of the season). again, we weren't so impressed. more sweet than savory. maybe overall they were going for a lighter, more summer menu than either of us were at all ready for (i mean, it snowed last week!). the best course for me. hedgehog mushroom ravioli with something green, lentils, celery root puree, and dollops of carrot reduction. some quibbles: two would've been enough, and a bit too much celery root and lentils. and is it just me, or is one meal with celery root enough celery root to last you for a year? i think i've had three in the past three months. enough already! andy had the arctic char with pickled ramps and lemon. he was distinctly unimpressed with the quality of the char and the balance of the dish, which had an overall onion taste he found overwhelmed it. dessert, L to R: glass of chocolate milk which i have to say was strongly reminescent to me of the sugary chocolate milk that's left after you've eaten a bowl of chocolate rice krispies or cocoa puffs. very strange. next, chocolate cake with cashews. standard, but a nice consistency. last, milk chocolate ice cream, which was unusual and quite good. andy had the goat cheese cheesecake with huckleberry ice cream. good, but again the balance left something to be desired. andy's comment: the ice cream was too creamy to complement the goat cheese. a sorbet would have worked much better. and to see us off, bits of chocolate-y squares, those fruit things i like (i feel so ignorant; winnie will have to remind me), and tiny macadamia cookies. our server was adequate although the rest of the service was better. the initial wait for menus was noticeably long, and we would've expected the restaurant would have had a more rigorous no cell phone policy. so that's my fairly laid-back review. feeling fairly chill at the moment. sorry, winnie, looks like of the three, great bay is the one that gets our vote (even though i think you weren't a fan of it). maybe it's just the level of boston restaurants, but i still haven't had a really memorable meal in boston in a long while. def. have some things lined up, though, so until next time faithful readers (haha) ...

get ready for a marathon post ... here's the precursor: first off, saw that burrito max closed! is this a product of the kenmore square gentrification? RIP, burrito max. your tofu bbq burrito will be missed! second, julia child's memoir looks totally cool and i was looking for a good bio on her w/out success so this is great to have. here's the amazon link for easy ordering access. and despite the fancy-shmancy dinner at radius where each dish was labored over by top professionals, i have to say i'm proud of the thai red curry i whipped up just now (now that i have my life back i actually have time to cook -- and do laundry haha). since i was dumping pictures i thought i'd take a rare pic of my own cooking. this curry was amazingly simple. you pretty much just put 1 cup of coconut milk in, some red curry paste and maybe a bit of sugar (and fish paste if you're of the omnivorous ilk), and some veggies, and then some more coconut milk, and that's it. my respect for thai curry makers has severely diminished. actually i shouldn't be too cocky, b/c the other curries in this book were much more elaborate. but this is def. going into my limited arsenal of guy-who-doesn't-really-cook-but-can-if-it-takes-less-than-10-minutes-and-there-are-less-than-five-ingredients dishes. here's the cookbook it came from. andy and i picked it up b/c it has lots of nice pics.

my deadline for work is finally FINISHED and i'm wholly enjoying my first free time. i'll start by catching up on some music news: cat stevens recording: Mr. Islam is working on his first pop album since 1978. It is expected in the fall, though there is no indication as to whether it will be released under that name or the one by which he first became famous, Cat Stevens. also, paul simon's new album was produced by brian eno. interesting. also worth mentioning is the recent announcement of the end of what was indisputably one of the greatest tori amos websites ever, thedent.com. this news is a particular shock to me b/c i have literally checked this site almost every day since i first came across it, prob. sometime just a few months after it began (in 1996). congrats to the dent for ten years of feeding my and countless other fans' tori love. you have been much, much appreciated and you will be greatly missed.

this nytimes article about american regional accents is interesting. as a louisvillian there have been times i've had people give me "where the heck are you from?" looks b/c of isolated, random words that somehow got into my pronunciation (and have since been somewhat smoothed over). off the top of my head: - "crayon": used to pronounce as "crown" - "sentence": inexplicably, used to pronounce as a very hillbilly-sounding "sint-ince" - "Iraq": not sure how people pronounce this, but I used to pronunce it as "EYE-rack" which I think is more hillbilly than the pronunciation "Ih-rack" - "Louisville": and of course everyone knows that natives pronounce this not as "Loo-ee-vill" but as "Loo-uh-vuhl".

i wasn't too good about taking a lot of pics while in seoul, but here are a few. building at deoksugung, one of several palaces: at inwangsan, a buddhist shrine: street food: deokbokki along with (from near to far): fried gimbap (korea's version of sushi, here mostly just rice noodles wrapped in gim, korea's version of nori), some fried seafood i think and mandu (korean wontons), and fried carrots/scallions i think and fried sweet potatoes. the sweet potatoes there are yellow and soo good. various kinds of fried doughnuts/rice cakes (ddeok). the ones on the left have red bean in them. the ones at the top of the picture are called hoddeok and are soo good. they have brown sugar in them, which gets nice and gooey. i craved them the whole time i was there, but unfortunately only had them once. am def. going to have to go back for more.

been out of the restaurant loop and wondering what the news is. anyone heard anything about delpha's new place sorellina (who was behind mistral)? this globe review makes it sound pretentious and the weird ending of the review just sounds seedy. i've only been to mistral once but was distinctly unimpressed. also, i think daisy mentioned toro, oringer's somewhat recent tapas place. similarly, i didn't care for clio and i believe andy didn't have much good to say about uni. what's the buzz? tell me what's a-happenin'.

i've been lax in posting ... been methodically making my way through every cambridge eatery i've happened to miss since my time in boston, as well as checking out the few new ones. some quick comments: bombay cafe (harv sq): it's been a long time since i've been to this place. not bad, but it's the type of gussied up indian food (like kashmir on newbury st) that i'd pass up in favor of more homey fare. 9 tastes (harvard sq): relatively new thai place. you've gotta wonder about any thai place that has an "all you can eat" special. this has earned a spot pretty near the bottom of my list of thai places in boston. pretty sloppily prepared and bland all around, and not bland in a minimal way like the popular MIT-student destination thailand cafe on mass ave. pepper sky (pearl st, central sq): has become a regular spot thanks to its closeness. pretty standard americanized thai food, and although the curry is depressingly bland, the spicy pad thai (also pretty minimal) is acceptable. the drunken noodles are prob. the best thing i've gotten from here. middle east (central sq): no one goes to the middle east for the food, and for good reason. the falafel was okay, but half of our grape leaves were inexcusably gritty. falafal palace (central sq): tiny place, but not bad. picante's (central sq): ecchh. i don't remember this place being so incredibly bad. have they changed management since i was in school? pretty inedible stuff. mass ave restaurant (b/t central and harv sq): the breakfast was okay, but the lunch (pseudo-mexican) is pretty much on the level of picante's, i.e. pretty terrible. in related news i've pretty much had to strike hamersley's (tremont st, south end) off of my list. went last night, and at the server's strong recommendation (although much against my better judgement) i got the mushroom wellington w/ madeira sauce, a sort of pot pie. this dish really chrystallized hamersley's failings, namely that in their pursuit of the full-bodied french rustic feel every dish is so buttery and creamy that they're overwhelmingly rich, heavy, and in the end just uninteresting. andy had the so-so duck confit, and our warm chocolate tart was similarly lackluster (just as most of the desserts we've had there have been). we've had some good meals there, but i've had too many subpar ones that it'll be a long time before i'll be persuaded to go back. so now that those mostly mediocre places are out of my system, i'm looking forward to hitting some new places w/ the warm weather. top of our list: upstairs on the square (in harv sq), petit robert bistro (kenmore sq), salts, the blue room. also, after the disappointing trip to hamersley's i'm more enthusiastic about hitting rendezvous again.

carl sent me this info about a CSA that has a pick-up location in central square. i'm sorely tempted to join, but $25 worth of vegetables a week sounds a bit much for me and i don't think they have smaller boxes right now.