I have been a combination of busy and sick for the past little while and as a result not posting and the like. I think I got through the Buffalo tournament, up until the point where we got home Sunday night, crashed for like 13 hours and were completely wiped the entirety of the next day. We did, at one point, have the chance to run to Target, where Katie bought me my birthday present. It is the totally sweet NINTENDO DS (to be read in the Cartman sense of SEGA DREAMCAST) and its greatest possible accompaniment Nintendogs. I have a really awesome Siberian husky named Jordis who is totally cool. She has learned how to sit, lay down, shake, and chase her tail on command. I can't even explain how cute it is. I'm gonna get a pug dog pretty soon here, but wanted to get the hang of the game first. So while they are delayed, I just wanted to send out a mad round of props to Katie for the present, which is awesome, and allows some video-based gaming on the often long and boring road to debate tournaments and the like.
Second thing of note: I ran to Wal-Mart the other day to pick some up some romance novels for Katie when she was not feeling well. Besides the fact that the photo lab now has a sweet machine that makes gift cards with any picture on the front (like Wal-Mart cash present gift card things) there was one thing really out of place. Parked next to me in the Wal-Mart parking lot, on Saturday afternoon, when every store in the world was open, was a brand new Bentley. Seriously, a car that potentially costs multiple hundreds of thousands was shopping for something at the cheapest of cheap ass locations. I understand that people who are rich get that way by not spending money all the time on random shit, but if you can afford even thinking about a Bentley its time to move up to Target full time.
We have watched alot of TV to make up for the tremendous lack of televisual moments that occurred between Kings and Buffalo. I'm up to date on Lost and Desperate Housewives, both of which I am happy to report, have not yet jumped the shark. While the basic satirical form of Desperate Housewives will prolly always leave it teetering on the edge, Lost appears to be going as strong as ever, now that everyone has determined like I did last year, that the show should be primarily about Locke. Jack's important and all, but without the incredible moments of Locke's feelings about the island the show would prolly end up meh at best. My three favorite new shows so far are Surface, Threshold, and Extras, the first two being pretty radically distinct from the last. Surface and Threshold are somewhat in the vein of Lost, at least insofar as the takeoff of odd mystery shows represents. I spose they also have a bunch in common with shows like The 4400. Surface also prolly connects with my childhood obsession with the Loch Ness monster, which I studied and wrote papers about for no specific reason for a while. I am still way behind on Rome and Invasion but I am happy for both. The disappointments, as of yet, are pretty limited, but two episodes in Commander in Chief is a not good program. I will give Geena Davis a couple more full weeks in office, but she is a pretty craptacular president thusfar.
Packers won big, it was a crazy awesome occassion, let me tell you. I'm not gonna equivocate like the NFL Live folks and think that the fact that we are only one win behind the Lions means that we have the chance to turn the season around, we're still a 6-10-ish team that just happened to encounter the perfect point-scoring storm in Lambeau field last Sunday. Brett Favre gets 3 touchdowns without playing a down after 3:00 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter, a productive running game producing two rushing TDs, and (I can hardly believe I'm writing it) 14 points produced by the defense and a near shutout. We beat-up the Saints, not exactly the Cowboys of the early 90s I might add, who were playing with injured/weakened/whatever Deuce and Brooks. I'm not trying to diss on the Pack-Attack, since I loved it more than just about anyone not wearing shoulder pads and the number 4, but I don't think it changes anything about the quality of the team. I'm just gonna enjoy that win for what it was.
Both the Yankees and the Red Sox are out of the playoffs, so the sports world can't be all bad. I haven't ripped on the Yankees as much as I normally would, insofar as I now work with two rapid Yankee fans. Similarly, I coach enough rubes from the Red Sox Nation to not bother making fun of the chowds. Suffice to say, not having to listen to either camp brag in their obnoxious East Coast accents for the rest of the year is reason enough for me to tolerate baseball. I wasn't surprised that the Chi-Sox took down Boston, but must admit that the dumbest named team in the history of professional sports surpsised me by defeating Steinbrenner's lackeys.
I almost forgot to mention one of last week's most exciting endeavors. Katie and I took our Friday night off and pretended that we were a normal couple that didnt spend every weekend in a random NorthEastern EconoLodge, instead deciding to go out for a nice dinner. We headed to a place called Marinaccio's for dinner, though we had just happened upon it. It was a decent Italian joint, small but classy enough. Katie had a tasty piece of trout while I rolled for the seafood, goat cheese, and tomato-cream sauce deliciousness that was the Agnelotti Paolo. I've really had a thing for the Southern-Northern Italian mixemup represented by the tomato-cream sauce lately, just thought I would throw that out there.
Afterwards we hit up the real highlight of the evening though: Butterwoods Dessert Restaurant. I won't go through the history and what all of the place, you can read the website if you care. The point is this: its a restaurant that serves elaborate multi-course plated desserts. It has coffee and a bakery with incredible looking cookies, pastries, cakes and whatnot, but those are all in second. You'll never believe how much in second they are until I tell you this. Katie and I ordered two things to share this is my description of the one which was NOT the best: it was called The Belgian Chocolate Pyramid. It was presented with a stick of chocolate in the top, atop a fluffy bed of whipped cream and accompanied by a creme puff swan. It was beautifully presented, and I haven't yet explained the dessert itself. The pyramid shaped concoction was coated with a hard chocolate shell. Directly underneath that shell was a layer of mousse, thick, delicious, chocolatey mousse. All that was atop something that was somewhere between a brownie and a flourless chocolate torte. On any other night it would prolly have been the highlight of the evening. Instead it was served at the same time as the Apple Tarte Tartin. The dessert meals were almost a combo of tapas desserts or something, since there were 7 mini desserts included. Some of them are described on the menu, but there was far far more.
The dessert came on a large rectangular platter about 2.5 feet by 1 foot. From my perspective, this is what it contained: in the near right hand corner was the tartin for which the dish was named, a delightful baked apple concoction with layers of apples, cinnamon, and flaky pastry, served with a creamy caramel sauce. To its left was the marscapone creme brulee, something which is so self-obviously delicious that I refuse to explain it to you, topped with a cookie thing and a mini-scoop of creme fraiche ice cream. Further to the left was a sort of shaved apple ice, which had a specifc name I cannot possibly remember. It was flavored like apples and green tea and was apparently made by freezing an apple, shaving it into little chunks of ice, and flavoring those with some herbs and syrups and the like. Bordering on savory dessert, but wonderful. Behind it, the back left of the platter, was a half an apple, poached in a ginger syrup and served with sour apple sticks. Nextdoor was three full sized apple chips, standing upright in two other scoops of homemade ice cream, one banana and one ginger. Wonderful. The ultimate highlight was next, an apple tempura. Damn was it delicious. I fully intend to whip that up with some caramel sauce and ice cream at some point, or, as Katie suggested in her infinite brilliance, a caramel apple tempura pie. The final note in this apple composition was a green apple sorbet, so deliciously sour and cold. It was great, really truly great.
It was my first endeavour into the world of dessert restaurants, but I think Katie and I have defintively decided to make return trips to Butterwoods. There is a chocolate pistachio beignet just waiting for me to devour it. We are not sure about their pet policy, but Hippo has been meow-sisting that we take her since the moment we got home. I'm pretty sure that more than a couple bites would have doubled our petite kitty's weight, but when she gets an idea in her persian head, you know how it can be.
Peace,
MB-K
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