Saturday, May 15, 2004

It's so nice out on the front step, in the lingering twilight. It feels like Hawaii.

Posted at 9:02:03 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Huge BOX of books, all for $13!! Including an entire 16-volume Illustrated Library of Nature set (the lady let me have the whole set for only $8!)! Three volumes are about the ocean! Outdoor library booksale in Glastonbury. Stumbled on it. Dean spotted it, and I screeched over. Looked at everything in the sun, while Dean read in the car. Got tons of great children's books. Twenty-nine books, total. A couple were only 10 cents! And bus tickets. Eyes were good earlier but now they're a mess.

Posted at 7:25:11 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Friday, May 14, 2004

China Pan was great! The Chowhounds know. There were so many cool vegetarian things, poor Dean didn't know what to order. They had all kinds of wacky fake things like duck, goose, pheasant, and ham, and I had a huge plate of soft shell crabs that the waiter said "were alive this morning." Afterwards, we checked off what we got on the takeout menu for future reference, and my thing was described as "whale sized soft shell crabs." Whale sized crabs!! Every time I think about that, I start laughing.

Posted at 8:42:06 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Well, I never thought of myself as a real woman, but apparently I am. I was standing in line at Starbucks and the man behind me quietly said to me, "I love your hair, by the way. It takes a real woman to wear her hair that way." I'm not exactly sure what that means (really messy?) but I was flattered. Said, "Thank you!" and waited for my tall dry cappuccino with a smile on my face. It was a really good cappuccino, too. I sent John a postcard with the Hale's and A Dong information. I hope he goes! Also, stopped at the China Pan restaurant (little non-descript Chinese joint highly recommended by the Chowhounds) and picked up all their menus, and they have multiple instances of tripe!!! And sea cucumber. Not so sure I'll be getting the sea cuke, though. The weird food is only on Saturdays, I think, but we may be going there tonight to test the waters. They also have an entire seperate menu just for vegetarians. Chowhound advice is the best advice. (I still don't think I'm a real woman, though.)

Posted at 12:12:49 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Did lots of research. Primary source: Chowhound. Secondary source: Citysearch. Tertiary source: actual restaurant websites, if available. I wish I would stop getting the hugest headache ever every night. At least it's better than every day and night, like last week. The headache exists at the very back of my head, right where it connects to the neck. And my eyes are positively gummy with inclarity. Straining straining straining to see. Blinking a lot. The focus changes when I blink. I don't think inclarity is a word. All I can think about now is tripe tripe tripe tripe tripe. So excited about tripe. Maybe I need to close my eyes now, though. Dream about shad milt and tripe. This morning when Dean called me on the phone a billion times to wake me up about the reservation, at first I thought the ringing phone was Hale calling to say he couldn't get any milt. Forgot to say last night, the oranges are so fragrant, they're like perfume. Like jasmine tea. And the raspberries = Grandmother Whaples' house thing is so extreme.

Posted at 2:16:35 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Aaaaaagh! TORTURE! Hugest tongue massage EVER.
(Because you're supposed to have to call one month ahead for reservations.)

Posted at 12:37:41 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, May 13, 2004

The milt was GREAT!!!!!! Wow! I kept getting that eel-eating look of ecstasy, near the end. It was fun and scary to cook! Insanely slippery and hard to keep hold of! I kept the two halves intact; they are held together by a thin membrane, and everything was sliding all around like crazy. It kept nearly escaping from me when I was washing it and getting it ready and into the pan (it was all bloody, in the bag; I had to wash the blood off, then salt, pepper & lightly flour it). When I was getting it ready, one part got folded over and some of the milt inside the sac started to escape, just a little. Quartz white, just like John McPhee says.

I had: six asparagus spears fresh from the Gingers' garden (first of the season), three Meyer lemon slices, and two pairs of shad milt on toast (the toast was really a toasted opened-up Rudi's Organic whole wheat small batch hot dog roll with the edges sliced off so it was toastular; they are really moist and chewy and not very wheaty tasting). We both had: strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries (the roe of fruit). And Dean had: a burrito from Oats with Jardine cilantro salsa and lots of optimally-ripe avocado, plus yogurt with his berries. He did a berry-and-yogurt (chompy cherry flav) analysis and determined that 1) raspberries, 2) strawberries, 3) blackberries. Very surprising! That's only a with-yogurt ranking, of course. The whole feast was ultra-delicious. Shad milt isn't smelly (meatular) to cook like shad roe. I love shad milt!!!

[Edit, 8:44: Photos! a) Spargle (note the dirt), b) Raw, bloody milt!, d) Transferring the milt to the pan, e) Quickly arranging milt, f) Me with milt feast, g) Zoom-in on feast so you can see all the details.]

Posted at 8:02:13 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Back! Got the shad!!! Almost got lost on the way because I forgot to remember how to get there. The guy at Hale's (it wasn't Hale; an inferior guy) told me that the little restaurant on the river (right behind Hale's; there were a billion people hanging out there, on the deck outside; it's really nice out today) is going to start serving shad, beginning today. I asked him if it was shad roe too or just shad, but he said it was just shad. That's still cool, though. When I walked in the door at Hale's and saw the guy, I said, "I'm the milt person." Got two pairs of milt ($4 each pair) and one shad filet to share with the Gingers ($8 worth of shad poundage in the filet). As I was leaving, I saw Hale in the parking lot and smiled really happily and said, "Hi!" He said "Hi!" back, but I'm sure he was thinking, Who the heck is she?? Do I know her? Before I went in to get my shad, I took a picture of Hale's (didn't want to take too many photos after, since I had my shad and I forgot to bring a cooler so I wanted to rush it right home). Then as I was leaving I pulled over behind the little restaurant joint and took photos of the cool Shad Shack sign that points the way to Hale's. Great new "shack" sign this year! (They still have the old sign, too.) Also took a picture driving along with my moonroof open, listening to Weeping Willow (shad music), Shadley around my neck, smiling my famous closed-mouth teeth-showing crocodile smile. [Edit: And you can see the corner of my Shad-Spargle Mailing on the passenger seat!]

Posted at 1:45:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Going to Hale's right now! And bringing my Shad Mailing! [Edit: And Shadley!]

Posted at 12:52:28 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Ugh, so wonky tonight, I can barely see. Much worse than usual. Too much excitement?

Posted at 11:53:36 PM by Laura W. Petix.

May is the BEST month. Shad, spargle, fiddleheads, and Bob. Too Much!

Doing Thursdaying now, to free up time for shad tomorrow. Hale has a very hoarse voice. Must be from all those cold wet foggy nights fishing for shad.

Posted at 4:08:29 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Called Hale! "Can I put in a request for shad milt?" He's going to get me two pairs for tomorrow! !!!!! At the end of the phone call he said, "Alrighty."

Posted at 12:26:08 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Oh, and John said he'd eat worms. I didn't suggest it, he just brought it up on his own. He said he'd eat anything, including worms. I agreed, except I said I wouldn't eat brains. That's when he bragged about his brain consumption. Curses on prions!

It's so wonderful stepping out into warmth.

Posted at 7:52:37 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Oh man, I'd forgotten how great dried cuttlefish are. Addictive.

Posted at 2:36:43 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Shad Elevator photos! No photos of the actual elevator because we didn't really get to see it (the fish had just been lifted when we arrived, so we got to watch them swimming along through the fishway over the top of the dam; they are released on the other side, after going through a skinnier passageway where people with clickers count them). I don't think you really get to see much with the actual elevator anyway; it's not see-through or anything. What happens is that they lure the fish over to the elevator area by making the water extra-agitated there; shad like turbulent water. Then they go in the elevator and it lifts them up up up (every half hour) and lets them out again on top where they swim through the fishway by the observation windows. Like this.

Here's what we saw when we first drove up: the very cute Fishway sign. The Hadley dam is at a power station, and inside the building it's like a big factory with all these huge 60s-looking machines. (Kind of like those giant wall-sized 60s computers.) You walk on a series of ramps though the building to get to where the fishway viewing area is. I liked this whiteboard on the wall where they post the fish counts. (Liked the fish drawings especially, of course.) The room is somewhat dark (it was really overcast on Saturday) and there are two viewing windows. It was kind of crowded when we arrived, but then the other people left and I got to see the shad really well and talk to the fishways people. It was hard to take a picture of the shad because I couldn't use my flash (it would've reflected off the window) and the shad were swimming pretty fast, so all the photos came out blurred. I thought this one was cool, though. The shad were big, and the female shad were bigger than the males. They were very silvery and the water was green. Couldn't capture the silver of the shad. There was a fake shad in a display case and as we were leaving, I took this photo of it. You can see Dean's and my reflections in the glass. Afterwards, we went outside and looked over the water where you can see the elevator and other mechanisms and see the fishway from the outside. The outside of it has pictures of fish to show where the fish are swimming. The fishway guy explained it all to us. The River is really wide there and the dam is huge. There's a giant wide waterfall that the fish can't get over without the fishlift, and the water is ultra tumultuous at the bottom, all white and churny with a mist rising up. You can see the shad jumping around down in the white water if you look really hard. (Well, you can't, but we could.)

Posted at 1:48:41 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Told John about chicken feet and he really really wanted to try them. Told him he should go to A Dong. I hope he does. I should send him the address. And I told him he should try SHAD. Shad, shad roe and shad milt. From Hale's. Should send the Hale info, too. John extolled the virtues of brain and squirrel and sparrow. Soooo jealous of the brain. Michelle did not want to try chicken feet. It's HOT today!

Posted at 1:42:07 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Just finished my first Snail of the Month. Subject: gels/jellies. I told the UPS Store guy, "I went through this entire book to find the most repulsive picture of a gelatin salad" and he asked me if I worked for an ad agency or something (this is the same guy who previously thought I was a teacher). I said, "Work? This is fun." Then he said something about making photocopies of disgusting gelatin photos not seeming like the most productive way to spend one's time, and I just laughed at him. Yesterday the M made me a grilled cheese sandwich and when it was ready she told me to cut it the Busbis way, so I did. (I don't know how to spell Buzzbiss.) "If it doesn't gel, it isn't aspic, and this ain't gelling." Too late for shad photos, but I did pick out which ones to post. Tomorrow.

Posted at 2:18:10 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Monday, May 10, 2004

Still all messed up; my heart's beating like a hummingbird and my eyes are fluctuating like crazy and my head's thick and achy. Yesterday at the Gs I got an X in Scrabble. Racked my brain trying to remember "...minx sphinx squawk box / aviatrix equinox / mailbox paradox / quincunx pillbox / googolplex Rolodex / flaxy doxy / sexy pixy / expurgated moxie..." Wrote "taxi." The G shaved off his beard and mustache. The last time he was clean-shaven was before I was born. Something about his mouth and the edges of his eyes made me think of David. He has nice lips. Drinking genmai from Ito En, and just ate half of my last lorange. It was still alive, in the refrigerator. I bet I'll never see another lorange again. I officially love loranges.

Posted at 12:49:02 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Sunday, May 09, 2004

I dreamt about the elusive mangosteen! Dean and I met a Chinese man from Madrid (??!) and I got all excited and asked him if he'd had mangosteen. He hadn't. He knew what I was talking about, though.

Posted at 10:36:48 AM by Laura W. Petix.