The Phantom

Do you love the state fair but hate children and the sound of their laughter? Think agricultural equipment is unworthy of looking at? Believe quilting and jam making should be simply appreciated and that to judge them cheapens their respective art forms? Think butter is for eating and not sculpting? Hate rides that spin? Think adults who walk around with giant stuffed animals are idiots? If you answered yes to more than three of these questions, you may not in fact be a fan of the fair and simply like overeating. If this is the case, man, does Boston have the thing for you. The Phantom Gourmet is a local TV show where a guy goes around to New England restaurants and tells you what's good. It's food porn at its finest, and every year the show hosts the Phantom Food Festival outside Fenway featuring the best of the best dishes from his favorite eateries. So get this--40 bucks gets you in the door and it's all you can eat from there. Yesterday, the neighbors Chris and Mandy and I went there to do battle against crowds and moderation.

I hesitate to even post this since we strive for truthfulness on this blog and I'd hate to have people start accusing me of exaggeration, but here is an alphabetized list of the things I ate:

Ahi Tuna (pictured below)
Arancini
Beer (Budweiser, born on May 9th. Unacceptable.)
Beer (Michelob)
Beer Cookie (don't ask, it was full of fennel and disgusting)
Calamari (sauced in the buffalo style)
Cheesesteak
Chicken pot pie
Chicken wing (Asian, pictured)
Chili
Chowder (clam)
Clam (drunken, possibly the best thing I ate although it's tough to say for sure)
Conch fritter (pictured)
Cupcake (Kick Ass brand)
Fries (French)
Hoagie (Italian)
Hot dog (with bacon, cheese, and BBQ sauce)
Ice cream (coffee and oreo)
Meatball (regular)
Meatball (veal)
Mess, the (a disappointing pasta dish)
Peanut butter cup
Pickle (spicy)
Pizza (two (2) slices from different pizzerias)
Pop (blueberry)
Rib (BBQ)
Ricotta Gnocchi
Root beer
Sherbet (rainbow)
Steak tip
Sushi
Taco (mini)
Truffle (had some fruit B.S. in the middle instead of chocolate, I nearly spit it in the woman's face)
Whoopie pie (smuggled home in Mandy's purse and eaten post-nap)

That is all. I'm not one to use the term hero lightly, but I ate heroically. After Liz got off work, we reconvened with the neighbors for some much needed exercise in the form of bowling. And nachos, we had nachos. My first Massachusetts bowling score was a respectable 123, Liz's a paltry 130.

Acadia (North Shore East)

Over labor day, the wife and I threw the tent, a rasher of bacon, and a length of stout rope into the car and drove up to Bar Harbor, Maine, the location of Acadia National Park. The scenery on the drive up was straight out of northern MN, a mixture of pine and birch forests. When we got to the park, we were immediately struck by how much it resembled the North Shore's rocky islands. You'd have to taste the water to tell that it was ocean instead of Superior. The ocean was dotted every 20 yards or so with markers for lobster pots, which make lobsters:




When they wash up on shore they make good tripods:



The scurrying rocks were not very challenging. The mountains were a bit higher than in MN, with Cadillac mountain being the highest. Here's us at the top:


One day we rented bikes to take out on the park's extensive system of carriage roads, built for horse drawn carriages by John D. Rockefeller('s money) in the early 1900's. It was about as nice a bike ride as you could want:

There's a very old restaurant in the park that is famous for their popovers. We stopped and had a few while we looked at these boob hills.

We did not see any moose, which is probably for the best since the language barrier between us, who only speak the MN dialect, and the locals might have resulted in a diplomatic, even life threatening disaster, as anyone familiar with how similar "It is an honor for us to visit your lands," and "The ticks on your mother are thick and engorged and smell of alewives," are in the moose language family, along with the moose's propensity towards goring, knows.

In summary, Acadia is nice, but if you want the same scenery without the cost of a flight, go to Tettegouche. Also, here is a carving of an Indian with a ladder in his nose:

The Neighbors

We've now spent many evenings sitting out in the back yard chatting with the neighbors, Roslindale natives Paul and Dierdre. They are super nice, fun people and we hit it off right away. So, as an enjoyer of food and the preparation thereof, I started asking about the things they like to eat so that I might one day wow them with an elegant yet casual dinner spread. Since our grills our 30 feet apart, I often see them cooking dinner. The only things I've seen them grill, however, are steaks, burgers, hot dogs, and boneless skinless chicken breasts, leaving me little to go on. During my initial inquiries, we established that Dierdre does not eat anything that has ever spent any portion of its life in water.

Lobsters? "God No."
Fried fish? "No sir."
Shrimp? "Eww."
Salmon? "I'll eat fish sticks but I don't really like 'em."

OK, so seafood's not their thing. Would you ever try venison? "Not in a million years." Her eating habits have since turned into a kind of running joke, where I talk about the stranger things I eat/have eaten and ask her if she likes them. The answer, invariably, is no. I had the queen mother of these exchanges with her yesterday evening. It started when Paul was saying how Dierdre sends him to work with treats for the mechanics in the auto shop he manages.

"Today I sent watermelon, I also do a lot of bacon."
"Wait, you send him to work with a pile of fried bacon?"
"No, bacon, the Boston way of saying baking."
"Oh, that makes more sense, but you could make a great salad out of watermelon, bacon, and some cheese."
"What kind of cheese?"
"Oh, goat or feta are the most common."
"I hate both of those."
"What kind of cheese do you like?"
"American."
"That's it?"
"Sometimes cheddar."
"Those are about the only two cheeses that would not be good in a bacon/watermelon salad. What about mozzarella?"
"I like mozzarella, but only melted on pizza, I wouldn't eat a big hunk of fresh mozzarella."
"Do you like blue cheese?"
"Hate it."
"Then what do you dip your chicken wings in ?!"
"I don't eat chicken wings."

Wild Weekend

Liz took the bus down to NYC to go to our friend Missy's bachelorette party on Saturday morning so I had a whole day and night to myself. I was pretty worried about her but tried to have some fun on my own. The list of things I was worried about included:

A group of unaccompanied females is an attractive target for Middle Eastern terrorists, New Jersey guidos.

Swine flu from contaminated penis straws.

Jeter and A-Rod confusing Liz for a man and stealing her away from me with their smug, soulless charms.

News, and the commencement of its dissemination.

Although somewhat paralyzed by worry, I attempted to soldier on and make some use of the day. After I dropped Liz off, I made myself a man sized breakfast of home fries, eggs, bacon, and Smuttynose IPA. I then played some golf, came home, and ate a dozen oysters with a G&T. Just when my night of bachelorhood was about to get really crazy, I sat down on the couch to watch the Twins, watched about 1.5 innings, then fell asleep and woke up around midnight. It was probably for the best since my coworker and I had plans to run a ~9 mile stretch of this trail that follows Boston harbor early the next day. It was a nice little weekend.

Weekend

Had a nice little weekend here. We played a game of poker on Friday night, a tournament for a new ipod touch my coworker got free with the purchase of a Mac. Liz exited early, leaving me to match wits with the field. It came down to me and a relatively inexperienced player who had a substantial chip lead after knocking out the last few players on a single hand. I went all in on an open ended straight draw after the flop which included an ace. I figured she didn't have an ace and would think I did, but like an idiot, she called me, winning the tournament on a jack high. She was pumped and I'm glad she won.

Saturday we checked a new state off our list--Rhode Island, America's Tattoo...

not...

We took our bikes and did a nice ride on a path along Narragansett Bay. It was nice, lots of tidal marshes and some rocky islands. Providence seemed nice and even had a brew pub. We had some wings whose superbly crafted sauce almost overcame the slightly overdone nature of the meat itself. All in all they were highly noshable but hardly life changing. The beer selection was not large, maybe 5 brews available. I had their imperial IPA which was nice and hoppy but served out of a cask. Its temperature was not ideal for post-bike ride refreshment. Liz's spicy blond ale was better. Here's a picture of Providence's skyline that I stole off the internet.

Do You See A Trend

As I type up this blog I am realizing that most everything I blog about has before and after pictures. I blame it on HGTV, What Not To Wear, and all those other shows that are about taking something and fixing it up. Well, if you like those shows and my posts, you'll like this post.

Every week I am amazed at our yard and garden. It really is beautiful. I have to give the previous homeowners props on all the perennials and how everything is scheduled to come up and bloom at different times.

Here is a pic from our front garden in March:




Our garden just a couple days ago:

The New Do

Liz - Before Cut




Liz - After Cut



Wow! I was a ghost before I went to the beach on Sunday. I'm glad that it looks like I have a nice tan in the photo (in real life it's more of a burn).