#18 Boston - Petra's Little Helpers - October 4, 2007

This week we are starting off with a little praise, my friends - we are tipping our hats to my friends Ken, Chris and Milton, who all support that pathetic habit of mine to not fix things on my own when they are broken, but break out into my damsel-in-distress routine and with batting eyelashes and impish grin ask for help from strong men such as they are.

Helper Number One would be Ken, who I talked into fixing a flat on my bike, which I know is not rocket science, but do I like doing it - no!!! Being the pathetic helpless female that I am, not only did I have him fix it, but casually walked away from the whole scene, not even feigning remote interest in the whole endeavor. This did not sit well with my bike mechanic, who promptly called me to the scene of the crime and made me watch (and hopefully learn). I am afraid next time this happens he may make me fix the flat myself. I'll have to see how I would get around that one. With the bike fixed, the "Red Rocket" was immediately taken out for a spin on the Minuteman Bikeway and attached back-road trails all the way out to Concord, Mass (and back), and my sorry self, who has been so out of shape due to my heel injury and a prolonged period of sloth and indolence, got herself so exhausted that nap time started early, at precisely 8 PM on Sunday evening.

I have since embarked on a bike regimen that will help get that sorry little body of mine in better fighting shape, and taken the long way to work, exactly 10 miles longer than usual, riding along the Charles River Esplanade out to Mt Auburn Hospital and back. By the time I get into work, I am usually ready for the first nap of the day, and could use some caffeine, pronto.

Helper Number Two would be Chris, who also caved in to one of my pleas for help - I had promised to take him out to dinner if he fixed my wireless setup at home, which I had managed to destroy all on my own. Note to self: When the computer asks, "Are you sure you want to delete this file?" - double check!!! Chris was a genius, fixed the wireless problem, and sooner rather than later, we headed to the East Side Bar and Grille, my local hangout of choice (literally a short half block from my house). Great bar and a nice dining room, good Italian food and some big screen TVs for the sports enthusiasts.

Not to forget Milton, who has been moral support and shopping consultant for all things related to hiking - we are planning a winter ascent of Mt Washington, and yours truly will have to acquire some fancy gear such as an ice axe, crampons, and other expensive items.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you - to the three of you.

Last weekend to a good degree was spent with the wretched application to retain my German citizenship, but there is only so much bureaucracy one can take on a weekend. The first stop after my escape was a lovely meal at the newest cutest little lunch spot called “The Spotted Apron” ( ). Located right across from Mass General it has replaced the Paris Creperie, which used to be one of my regular neighborhood “grab and go” lunch places, but apparently there were some health code violations, and to be honest, the guy who made the crepes there never inspired much confidence in their cuisine.

Saturday evening found me surrounded by Germans, again, this time the German language group, which consisted mostly of Americans who for one reason or another spoke German, wanted to speak German or were dragged there by their friends and partners before they could say “nein”. There was even I guy from India there, who did not do badly with the Mother Tongue. The meeting was held at the Asgard Irish Pub in Cambridge (http://www.classicirish.com/asgard_about.html), reasonable walking distance for me and after the couple of beers I had, a good thing. It was a fun night, with a variety of unexpected topics that were discussed (I remember goiters being one of them). Plans were made (and from the follow-up emails I got, I think these people are serious) for a Spaetzle workshop (in which apparently I am playing a key role) and a field trip to the German butcher on Route 1 in Saugus.

Sunday, as promised, Ruth, Georges and I met up at 75 Chestnut ( ) for a jazz-infused brunch - quite lovely I must say. The company was superb, the food great, and I simply adore hanging out in Beacon Hill on the weekends (). Charles Street was abuzz with the news that Meg Ryan was shopping in the neighborhood, and the celebrity watchers were on high alert. A quick trip to Beacon Hill Chocolates ( ) and the consumption of some pumpkin-infused artisan truffles made the world so much better right away and put a nice touch on a wonderful Sunday.

My friends, I am about to head out to California for the weekend for the wedding of my friends Chris and Brad and will send the tales from Napa Valley next week.

Tata….

Pet:)

#17 Boston - All Things German - September 29 07

The week has been and continues to be under the banner of "Germanness", and not only with the impending visit of my brother and his entourage in about a week or so. This past Wednesday I again joined the German ExPats Group at Jacob Wirth's (http://www.jacobwirth.com), which as usual was a fun event. A never ending influx of German transplants, other German speakers and hangers-on makes the group a wonderfully dynamic congregation and at each meeting about 20 of us gather around a big table, eat German food and chat about all things important to us foreigners. Tonight I will see some more German people, a German language group of sorts , who strangely enough will meet at an Irish pub in my neck of the woods (The Asgard - http://www.classicirish.com/asgard_about.html) - but hey, beer is beer, right? As long as they do not run out of it, I am game and so are the other Germans.

I am writing this to you from my office, where I will dedicate my efforts today toward the first draft of my application to retain the German citizenship. I have been dragging my butt on this one for quite some time, mostly because it seemed like a pretty hopeless endeavor. To summarize: If I want dual citizenship, and I do, Step 1 is to first deal with the Germans. Their application contains two parts - in part 1 I have to prove existing connections with Germany (no problem here), and in part 2 (and this is the hard part) one has to prove that not having the US citizenship would be a hardship for this, that and the other reason. Generally those reasons are either serious legal or financial reasons (estate tax - if you are really loaded). So I had pretty much given up on this and was ready to go for the US citizenship anyway, but recently discovered an amazing Yahoo Blog, which contained tons of tips on how to prepare this application successfully. The web site contains many successful applications to download, and today my friends, I am going to pilfer. I have devised a strategy that may just succeed, and I hope to finish the application within the next month or so. Wish me luck.

So, this week was a busy one, and I cannot believe that it is Saturday. If you recall, last Sunday I flew to Washington, DC and then headed out to Bethesda, Maryland for a two-day conference on early drug development in cancer at the NCI< the National Cancer Institute. Of course (and I know at least two people I can blame for this), I got a cold on Sunday, and was a bit of a sorry sight, red nose and all. Most of the conference was spent in a haze of decongestants, and in one meeting room, so I am afraid I cannot tell you too much about Bethesda, aside from the fact that it is a wee bit northwest of Washington, DC. It was named after a church built in the early 1900s, the Bethesda Presbyterian Church, and they pilfered the name from Jerusalem's "Pool of Bethesda". The actual word Bethesda stands for "House of Mercy" (from Aramaic). Bethesda is dominated by quite a few government agencies, but in particular the National Institutes of Health, which cover quite some ground there; the National Naval Health Center and Lockheed Martin are located there as well. Famous Bethesda natives include astronaut John Glenn, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, talk show host Maury Povich and NPR great Cokie Roberts. And of course Eunice Kennedy Shriver lives there. I was actually very surprised by quite a lovely downtown area (http://www.downtownbethesda.com/) when we headed out to dinner one night, and I must tell you that our French meal at La Miche ( http://www.lamiche.com) was absolutely superb. My boef bourguignon was spectacularly tasty, and I only heard the greatest praise from my colleagues Paul and Geoff across the table about their choices.















Work has been very busy this week, and kept me here late last night as well. I continue on my honeymoon in the Translational Research Lab, and this week we practiced cutting microscopically thin slices of tumor tissue from FFPE (formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded) blocks. And you know what, apparently I have quite the knack for it, and they let me go to town with the microtome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtome). Aside from one little bitty slip-up, I had a very nice day there, and next week we will be doing some staining. (You are noticing, that I am turning into a science geek, right?)

The weather as of last night has hopefully made up its mind (considering that it is supposed to be fall) and dropped the temperatures down to the upper 50s (phew!), rather than the mid-90s we have been experiencing this week. Hopefully we have some wonderful foliage to look at when my family snows into town.

With my brother's visit, this coming month will be slightly insane - it is sandwiched between two trips to California (first one next weekend to Napa for the wedding of my friends Chris and Brad), and hopefully I will find some time to breathe in between. By the time my birthday and late October comes around, I may just want to sleep for about a month or so.


As for this weekend, there are plans - this afternoon, I will be heading to Union Square in Somerville for the "What's The Fluff? Festival", which will feature all kinds of things (including cocktails) with the famous marshmallow spread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshmallow_creme), which was invented in Somerville. Tada! This may be a sticky affair and all the sweet stuff may have to be washed down with a beer tonight when meeting with the German speaking hordes. Tomorrow a lovely brunch is in the works with my friend Ruth (who finally moved back from Toronto!!! yeah!!!) and her fiancee Georges - our brunch place of choice this week is 75 Chestnut, a charming little place on Beacon Hill http://www.75chestnut.com/. More about that next week.

Before I leave, two big news items:

Number 1: I got a cortisone shot yesterday at the Sports Medicine Clinic (damn that hurt!), that hopefully will make that heel of mine heal up nicely and in about ten days or so the steroid should have done its work, and the inflammation should be seriously reduced. Still have to do stretching, and icing every day. As of now the heel is sore from the shot and I'll have to grin and bear it for another day or two.
Number 2: The Red Sox clinched the American League East division title last night!!! I believe there might be some parade going on Monday night, where the hub once again will be filled with tens of thousands of baseball fans. Gotta love it.


Go Sox!!!

pet:)

#16 - Boston - Restaurant Week - September 22 07

Not as in the official "Restaurant Week" which happens in Boston once or twice a year, but the unofficial Petra-Loesch-goes-to-as-many-restaurants-as-possible kind of week. How does six restaurants sound (only one lunch included)? It started off Tuesday with the monthly wine group meeting at the Aujourd'hui restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston (http://www.fourseasons.com/boston/dining/aujourd_hui.html). I love our monthly get-togethers at the 4S - they are just the best. The staff hugs us when we get there, not just because we pay our bill, but because they are just wonderful people. This time the motto was "Gaja" wines - the Gaja winery was founded by a certain Giovanni Gaja in 1856 in the Piedmont Area of Italy, and they have some nice little wines there, let me tell you. As usual I must tell you about the menu:

Course 1: Scallop Ceviche with Heirloom Tomato Salad, Strawberry Tomatoes (they really tasted like strawberries, cool stuff), in a Balsamic Reduction and Fried Capers
Wine of Choice: 1998 Alteni di Brassica Sauvignon Blanc, Langhe, Piedmont (Excellent Wine)

Course 2: Duck Leg Ravioli (so good, so good!) with roasted onion, sage, and parmigiano
Wine of Choice: 2005 Sito Moresco (Nebbiolo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot) Langhe, Piedmont (Nebbiolo comes from the Italian word for fog I was told, apparently in this area of Piedmont that is a bit of an issue)

Course 3: Roasted Shoulder of Russian Wild Boar, Creamy Polenta, Black Mission Figs, French Prune Plums, Rosemary Jus (excellent)
Wine of Choice: 2005 Ca"marcanda "Promis" (Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon) Bolgheri, Tuscani

Sound good eh?

Wednesday night I hit two places in one, first my most frequented Thai place of choice "The King and I" on Charles Street in Beacon Hill - http://www.kingandi-boston.com/, to meet up with my lovely friend Jennifer, followed by drinks and philosophizing with Andrew at the S&S Restaurant (or would that be the S$S Restaurant?). http://www.sandsrestaurant.com/ . On Thursday, I was off to a business dinner with my colleague and friend Murray from the UK, who took me to the restaurant "Clink" in the newly opened Liberty Hotel next to MGH (remember, the former jail) - http://www.libertyhotel.com/dining.html. The food was fabulous, let me tell you - and that was not just the two Hurricanes talking I had as a warm-up (http://www.drinksmixer.com/cat/364/). Their stuffed chicken was out of this world, the wait staff very attentive and I had a lovely time walking home and muttering to myself.

Friday, my boss Bruce, Murray and myself (business meeting #2) headed to a lovely little French place , the Pierrot Bistro on Cambridge Street for some exquisite cuisine francaise (http://www.pierrotbistrot.com/). Quite the culinary week and to be honest I am a little exhausted from all this fancy food. Today on our trip to Plum Island Stephanie and I went to Lobster Bob or Bob Lobster, a roadside establishment of sorts, and I was happy with some very simple food (and wouldn't you believe it, they have a web site - http://www.boblobster.com/). On account of my recently diagnosed lobster allergy I stuck with a salmon burger, so all was well and we have no anaphylactic reactions to report today.

Steph and I had headed out there for some nature activities in and around Plum Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Island_(Massachusetts), so we first stopped at Joppa Flats - http://www.massaudubon.org/Nature_Connection/Sanctuaries/Joppa_Flats/index.php - a wildlife sanctuary right at Plum Island, and then continued on to the Hellcat Interpretive Trail, a lovely 3.5 mile board walk through freshwater marshes and up some dunes, and into maritime woodland habitats. One grabs a little brochure, and off you go. Stephanie was the official reader of the day, at each station we paused and educated ourselves a little about the native and not-so-native plant species and whatever else there was to know. We saw bayberries, honeysuckle, cattails, purple loosestrife and the common reed (the last two being both invaders), beach grass and beach heather, and avoided the very abundant poison ivy wherever possible. It was a lovely day out there with temperatures in the upper 70s, and we certainly had a wonderful time.


On the cultural end, I ushered last Sunday at the Huntington Theater Company for the play "The 39 Steps", based on the Alfred Hitchcock movie, but with a Monty Python twist. A note to my Boston friends - go see this! I laughed until my jaw hurt. Phenomenal!! The four, very gifted actors on stage play about 150 roles over the course of the play, and in particular sidekicks Arnie Burton and Cliff Saunders had us in stitches all night. (http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/season/production.aspx?id=3923&src=t).

Before I sign off, a quick note on my first experience in the lab - it was wonderful!!! And the building is still standing. I am happy to report that I isolated my first ever bacterial DNA and after we put it in a nice little PCR machine, I was told the next day that it amplified just according to plan. I had such a good time with Darrell and Susan, and learned so much! Lab procedures and genetic analysis has changed so much since my university days, lots of new tech stuff involved, many of the procedures are so much easier. I am certainly looking forward to next week's lab time.

I will try to load up some pictures tonight from today's outing, but also must get ready for a 2-day visit to Bethesda, Maryland to attend a drug development meeting by the National Cancer Institute. Woohoo!

Hope all is well with you.

pet:)

#15 Boston - So Bloody Not British - September 16, 2007

That is how my UK-based friend Caroline summed up her love of the city of Boston - it is "so bloody not British". I guess that means that she had a good time during her brief stint here this week. By Friday both of us were so tired that we went to bed at 9:30 PM - completely knackered, as they say on that favorite European island of mine. Caroline arrived Tuesday night, and we pretty much were out and about every evening, starting with a visit to Patrick and Ellen, Highway Flame (resident canine) and Marge (gender-ambivalent bird, also a resident) at 111 Webster Street in Watertown on Wednesday. We (that is Petra and Patrick) watched the movie "Talledega Nights" (Hakuna Matata Bitches!!) whereas both Ellen and Caroline opted to sleep through it. While I think Ellen's slump could be attributed to a Chinese-food induced diabetic coma, jet lag definitely got the better of poor Caroline, who was out like a light, and can now attest to the superb quality of Pat and Ellen's living room furniture.

Thursday night I actually had talked Caroline into volunteering with me at the Lyric Stage Company - the theater season has officially commenced and started off with a bang - "The Man of La Mancha" - a musical, which depicts the story of Miguel Cervantes, a tax collector and his servant, who get thrown into prison because they had the audacity to foreclose on a monastery. They are awaiting their call before the inquisition and while they are doing that, their fellow prisoners, lovely folk really, put them on a mock trial. Cervantes and his servant in their defense put on the play about Alonso Quijana, who pretty much is a mandman, loses his mind, decides to call himself Don Quijote and takes off to fight injustice along with his squire, Sancho Panzo. Quijote is quite delusional, which does make the play a lot of fun and Christopher Chew, my favorite Boston stage actor was just perfect in this role. http://www.mwcc.mass.edu/HTML/gmod/tam/performerProfiles/chrisChew.html . Robert Saoud as Sancho I think stole the show and the hearts of the audience - the play certainly deserved the standing ovation it got at the end.

Having experienced the Boston theater scene for some time now, I have become a big supporter of some of the local performers here - Chris Chew together with (my) favorites Kathy St George and Corey Jackson are part of the Village Theater Project based in Groton and Harvard, Mass which gives a voice to stage actors in the area http://villagetheatreproject.org/a/company/chewc.html, and with its Youth Project looks forward to the next generation of stage performers in the Greater Boston area.

No visit is complete for Caroline and myself with a quick visit to the S$S Restaurant at Inman Square (http://www.sandsrestaurant.com/), a true Cambridge Institution (it has been around since 1919), where you can go and get anything from Matzo Ball Soup (often my choice) to knishes or a good old fashioned cheeseburger. They have excellent bread, and their breakfast omelettes (which you can order for dinner as well) are first class. After dinner and one of them fancy drinks (mango colada for me, some passion fruit thingy for Ms Grace) we were done for the night, and after a half-baked attempt to get into Ryles (fruitless), we just shlepped ourselves home and called it an early night.

Caroline moved out yesterday to spend some time with other friends in Boston, and after running a couple of errands, I hopped in a car and drove down to the Cape. My friend Rob from the cycling group had organized a bike trip on Nantucket (http://nantucket.net/) for today, and had invited participants to stay over at his brother's house in Hyannis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyannis,_Massachusetts - psst - this is where the Kennedys live - in Hyannis, not in Rob's brother's house). I had decided to join them for dinner last night, since Hannah from my wine group was going to be there as well. Hyannis is a typical touristy Cape town, but now that fall is in the air and the summer season is about to end, has a bit of an abandoned feel to it. Rob and I dined on some Mexican fare on the Hyannis main drag at Gringo's and when Hannah arrived at the house we all dedicated our attention to a nice bottle of Malbec.

The bicyclists took off this morning at some ungodly time, while yours truly slept in and headed back to Boston, as I have ushering duty later this afternoon (with Boston Cares this time) - a performance by the Huntington Theatre in Boston. On tap is a play called "The 39 Steps" which is based on the 1935 Hitchcock movie, but the play has more of a slapstick-Monty-Python kind of feel to it. I will keep you posted.


Maybe you have noticed that I did not report anything about the Presidential Traverse that was planned for this week. This past Tuesday I made the decision to postpone the adventure to next year - my plantar fasciitis is just not healing as fast as I want it to, and doing this hike would have thrown the recovery process back by months. Making this decision was not easy, and I was pretty upset and saddened by it. Thanks to those of you who reminded me that the mountains will still be there next year, and that it is probably snowing up there anyway....... loved your kind words.

Signing off my friends.

Be well.

pet:)

#14 Boston - Like a Duck to Water - September 7 2007

Something miraculous has happened this week!! And I am serious about this. Some of you may know that I have a significant phobia regarding swimming - I am talking major - breaking-out-in-hives-hyperventilating-ohmygod-I-am-going-to-die kind of phobia. I like swimming (in particular in ponds and lakes), but the neurosis kicks in when I swim in a pool, and have to put my head under water. Can't do it. Just can't. Fear that I can't breathe, and start sweating bullets. Big time. Well, I have now for some time approached conquering this fear of mine, and in order to really do it right, recently purchased a pair of extremely stylish goggles (http://www.trisports.com/tyrfetelme.html) and one of them lovely Speedo silicone swim caps (blue, of course). I looked hot man!! Wednesday night, after a few awkward and angst-laden minutes, I eased my way into it, and just did it! I was so excited, I did not want to leave the pool, ever!! By the time I got out I had webbed toes and was shriveled up like a prune. I thought it was the most divine thing ever to look underneath the surface of the water!! A whole new world opened up!! This is so cool!! I came home a proud little swimmer, and if I can now focus on not drinking half of the pool water when I swim, there may still be hope.

In other exciting news the new Liberty Hotel right next to MGH opened this week - http://www.libertyhotel.com/ - this is of particular interest since the building used to be the Charles Street Jail, which was fully operational from 1851 to 1990. If you talk to any long-time MGHers, they can tell you story or two on how the prisoners either jumped out the window (to break a leg and then spent a few cozy days in the hospital) or just waltzed over directly to the emergency room masquerading as patients. Stephanie, Tom, some of their colleagues and I went over there to check out the scene, and we were quite impressed. The bars are aptly named "Clink" and "Alibi", the lobby is the former exercise hall for the prisoners, and some of the hotel rooms used to be jail cells. The hotel is completely wireless and totally high tech - my favorite being the mini-bars which have an instructional program that shows you how to mix cocktails. My kind of place (aside from the somewhat steep prices that do start at 325$ a night)!

Monday was a holiday and since I cannot run or hike at present due to that wretched right heel of mine, I focused on my other passion - cooking. I futzed around in the kitchen all day, went shopping and served a nice little meal where that lovely $40 Pinot Noir from our friends at the Lemelson Vineyard was killed off. That stuff went down good, let me tell you and was chased by my new favorite Scottish whiskey Bunnahabhain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnahabhain). Of course, the more you drink of the really good wine, the less you believe that that stuff is really worth it (but then again, it may have been the booze talking....).

Tuesday it was time to celebrate my friend Emily's birthday with a lovely backyard BBQ event - where dozens of people gathered around a big wooden table, ate all kinds of goodies and sang happy birthday while Em was trying to blow out candles that were perched atop of what can only be described as a monolith of ice cream. The nice thing about this event was that it was just three blocks from my house, and I could saunter over on foot. I try to make use of every even tiny opportunity for exercise - since I have been taken out of commission with the plantar fasciitis, a few nasty little bumps have snuck onto that body of mine that were not there before. Note to self: Must adjust portion size (of course it does not help if one eats first a Lean Cuisine dinner and then chases it down with ice cream..... I know, I am weak....)

Another positive note: three of my photographs will be shown at the MGH Cancer Center's Illuminations exhibit this fall (I have attached copies of the three) - two from my trip to Brookfield, Connecticut - pictures of a blacksmith barn, and the third a rigging shed at Salem Harbor. I will keep the Boston contingent informed as to when the opening reception will take place so you an come and admire my work (or snicker behind my back, whichever you prefer...)















And a little bit of news from work - starting next week, I will spent one half day a week as a lab rat - trying to understand a bit better what our researchers work on and how I can help them acquire exciting new compounds from industry to work with. I am excited, but also a bit terrified, and if the lab director knew anything of my history in a chem lab, he would be a bit more ill-at-ease with this whole proposal. I promise to be careful, so hopefully you won't hear about me on the 6'o clock news because I burned down a building.

So, time to head home and put my feet up. Tomorrow I will be joining the Community Runners (on my bike) for a Saturday Fun Run on the Minuteman Bikeway - I will be the mobile water support. There is a toga-less toga party at Renee's, and Sunday morning I will volunteer at the registration table for the Run for Hope, a 5 K race that benefits the MGH Cancer Center. Tuesday my friend Caroline from the UK is coming for a few days of fun in Boston (oohooo!!) and next Saturday/ Sunday is the Presidential Traverse in New Hampshire.

Everyone have a nice weekend!!!

pet:)

#13 Boston - The Last Week of Summer - September 3 2007

It seems that summer is coming to an end slowly, the temperatures just dipping enough for us to feel that change is in the air. On the way to Cape Cod this Saturday morning, I saw the first, yet untimely early, signs of fall foliage, and my heart skipped a couple of beats in excitement. My favorite seasons of the year, fall and winter, are about to begin!!

I had spent a leisurely day and a half at the Cape at the Barry house with my cousin Rebecca, her husband Tommy, my two favorite little monkeys Liam and Dawson, and Tommy's high school friend Jeanetta and her daughter Sappho. It was all very relaxed, I had brought some home-made quiche and banana bread, the afternoon was spent swimming at a nearby pond (where Liam and I invented "Superman Swimming"), we looked at old family scrap books, and we had some nice burgers for dinner. The house is 300 years old, has tons of character and needs lots of TLC, but has so many family memories within its matured walls. I always enjoy staying there. It is located in the Yarmouth/ North Dennis area of Cape Cod (http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&svnum=10&hl=en&q=Cape+Cod), and you can walk right behind the house around the cranberry bog into the woods and get lost on some hiking trails for quite some time. The Mercantile in Dennis can be recommended for a great cup of coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and the Barry house backyard for bowling with old bed posts (don't ask).

Today is a holiday -Labor Day (for my European friends who are slaving away while we are lazy) and I will spend the day cooking and baking. Dinner for tonight will be salmon in a cream sauce with Jasmine rice, and a lovely salad, followed by apple pie. I have been inspired lately to cook again, and have been caught sitting on my couch reading cook books.

It has been an interesting week to say the least, which included a visit by the fire department to our house, a series of interesting cocktails and some not-so-good singing. After a period of self-induced abstinence, this week was a little more on the wet side, starting off Tuesday with another one of the Four Season's Epicurean evenings, which features a wine-food pairing under the wonderful guidance of sommelier Brick Loomis (who is becoming our friend rather quickly, which is a good thing). The motto for this wine-infused event, was wines from Walla Walla, Washington (try to say that quickly after a couple of glasses).

Walla Walla is an area in southern Washington State at the Oregon Border, which has two (or three) claims to fame - sweet onions (the so-called Walla Walla Sweets) and killer wines (and Drew Bledsoe for the football fans among you). It has emerged as a favorite destination for wine aficionados, and let me tell you, it was hard this time for me to pick a favorite.
The meal started off with a 2005 L'Ecole No. 41 Semillion "Seven Hills Vineyard" which was wonderful - a heavy, almost oily wine which was paired with a dish of Salmon Escabeche (similar to ceviche - a fish that has been poached in an acidic mixture) accompanied by a grocel sauce (greenish, could not find this on the web.... looked like basil to us). Second was a 2004 Lattitude 46 North Merlot "Katherine Leone Vineyar" from the Walhuke Slope, which was served with a Bavette de Boeuf (bavette means thin steak) and chanterelle ravioli (TO DIE FOR) in a rosemary bordelaise sauce. The meal was rounded out with a 2004 Tyrus Evan Claret "Del Rio Vineyard" from the Rogue Valley and with that we ate a Lincolnshire Poacher (a cheese), toasted cauliflower, pickled mustard seeds and a fleur de sel biscuit. The claret was favored by my three oenophile friends Hannah, Christos and Holly, but I have to go with the Semillion, and must go in search of a bottle of it soon.

Friday night it was time to take my friend Christian, who moved here from Texas a not-too-long while ago, and introduce her to Friday nights at Jacob Wirth's, the German restaurant in Boston's theater district. Friday nights are special at Jake's because the charismatic Mel Stiller plays the piano, and everyone sings. Every table has a song book, and Mel yells the page numbers so that the crowd knows what's next. In between each song, everyone screams numbers at Mel, in order to get their favorite song played next, and this bartering exercise gets quite rowdy, often with Mel yelling back "It's too early for that one!" Christian and I had a grand time, there was lots of laughing involved, especially as a baritone section of young men behind us took Billy Joel's "For the longest time" to unknown heights. I have to send a thank you to the lovely Christian right here, since she treated me to some fine German food to celebrate my 19-year anniversary in the US (same goes for the wonderfully charming Ana Holzbach who did the same with a fine Japanese meal this week).

The cocktails, right - that was the fault of my neighbors Chris and Tina on Gore Street - they decided to move to London, and when I stopped in to say goodbye, they gave me bags full of groceries, and a quite substantial amount of various liquors. Needless to say last Sunday evening (after just having returned home with the loot), I was in quite a merry mood (which did not carry into the next day - I wonder why....).

Last but not least, the fire department - oh well.... I leave the house once, once!!! Apparently my upstairs neighbors started smelling something funky, of the burning plastic, sulfurous sort (which is never a good thing). I was out at Jacob Wirth's singing and unaware of all the hoopla going on. Anyway, they called the fire department, who checked things out, but needed to get the basement. Now our basement door is usually locked, but the key for it is on top of the door frame. Do you think either the neighbors (who I had told about the key a couple of times) or the fire department checked for that? Nooooooooo. Instead I come home at 10:30 - all the lights are on in the hallway, the basement, the whole house is lit up like a Christmas tree, the basement door is off the hinges, the screws just strewn across the floor, and no note, nothing!! Wouldn't you think I get a note saying come up and see us, we'll explain??? So after a fun night out at Jake's, here I was reassembling doors, by myself of course. Aaaaaaaaah! Never a dull moment at 10 6th Street in Cambridge, that is for sure. The fire department of course could not find anything wrong and the smell must have come from somewhere outside...

On that interesting note, I must go now for some food shopping, and cook up a storm!

Talk to you soon.

pet:)

#12 Boston - One Game a Year, One! - August 26, 2007

Well, what can we say - Renee and I have a little bone to pick with the Boston Red Sox. Is it too much to ask for the one game per year that we attend, to have a win in store for us, huh? It's not too much to ask, I think. Every year, the same thing - Bruce (our very nice boss) gives us a couple of tickets, and Renee and I head to the holy grail of baseball stadiums, Fenway Park. Eeeeevery year, same thing - the Sox loose. Don't even dare to think that this is our fault, because it is not. We had a good time at the ballpark anyway, needless to say, one had to consume some beeaah, a sausage, or in my case a cheese steak, and just enjoy the general goings on. Fenway Park always makes me happy - everyone is there to have a good time, everyone loves the Red Sox, and the Big Green Monster, the ginormous green wall located in the outfield. (http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/bos/ballpark/index.jsp). My favorite part takes place in the eight inning when everyone sings Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline". So good, so good, so good....

The Red Sox game was one of the events on my social calendar last weekend, which did start with the bike ride along the Minuteman Bikeway, and then segued easily into a party at my friends Diane and Peter in the North End. The North End, Boston's Not-so-Little Italy, was celebrating yet another feast that night to honor a saint, and everyone, I mean everyone, was out on the street. (http://www.northendboston.com/) Good thing Diane and Peter's flat was way away from the festivities and their apartment faced the back, so we were safe from Italian lounge singers and hordes of tourists. The party was lovely, even though for some reason there was a virus going around that made everybody spill stuff. Granted I started it, but I think an exploding Seltzer bottle cannot be attributed completely to my usual clumsiness and not for other people's butterfingers.

Sunday was the Red Sox game, as you know, and we rounded out the weekend with a night at the movies, this time to watch "The Bourne Ultimatum", which I have to say was a kickass movie!! It is one of those flicks that you have to see in the movie theater - let's just leave it at that. V.g.

So, the week was a slow one, and you know what I appreciated it tremendously, knowing that once September starts, work is going to kick in the turbo, and I will be busy out of my mind. I just went to work every day, did what I had to do, and in the evenings went for a swim. After a few days of "feels-like-fall" weather, Mother Nature kicked it up a notch, and we had disgustingly humid and hot weather in the upper 90s.

I just returned from a lovely weekend in Peterborough, New Hampshire (http://www.townofpeterborough.com/), where our extended family hosted a very nice retreat, which included a reading by my cousin Rebecca Barry - you may remember her as the famous author of "Later at the Bar", which I know all of you have read by now (if you have not, I am cutting you out of my will, just so that you know.....). The reading toook place at Harlow's - a lovely pub in the town of Peterborough (http://www.harlowspub.com/index.html) - very cozy, with some good beers (including an organic ale) and a very congenial atmosphere. This was followed by a quick stroll to some of Peterborough's cute stores, including Toadstool, the bookstore who sponsored the whole reading shindig. (http://www.toadbooks.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp)

Actually I have to give a big shoutout to the Maclaurin family in Peterborough, New Hampshire, who organized the whole weekend, and kept everyone happy, entertained and well fed. After escaping from downtown Peterborough and the grueling heat of 97 degrees and 200 % humidity, a whole group of us (Ken, Tom, Sven, Rebecca, Tommy, Dawson, Liam and myself) headed down the road to a lovely pond, and hopped in for some nice cooling off.

This was the perfect thing to do, and of course could only be topped off by visiting the barn up the street, where a rope invited for some swinging around, and being the novice rope swinger that I am, I can show the rope burn to prove it. Despite a very impressive (albeit brief) demonstration by Ken on how to swing on the rope and gracefully hop back onto the plank where we started from, only Rebecca's husband Tommy managed to accomplish what needed to be done, whereas the rest of us in rather ungraceful and klutzy fashion bumbled around the barn hanging on to the rope for dear life. I still had fun, and will give rope swinging another try should the opportunity arise some day.





The evening was spent with a lovely dinner party, which included wonderful company - friends, relatives and neighbors, spectacularly scrumptious food and cocktails, and a more than balmy summer evening with a lightning display to follow later at night. It was one of those evenings, where everyone was very relaxed and had a good time - life was good. The weekend was rounded out today with a nice hike through the woods, chasing after newts and frogs, eating fresh blackberries, and visiting a nearby graveyard that told a passionate yet sad story of a married couple in the 19th century.

A little more about Peterborough for the historically inclined among you - you may remember the town from Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town", which he wrote while residing at the local MacDowell Art Colony. You may also remember Peterborough from my frequent hiking exploits to the Mt Monadnock area (http://images.google.com/images?q=Mt+Monadnock&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en) which can be seen from the Maclaurin house on a good day (such as today). Rumor has it the town derived its name from the Earl of Peterborough, but no one can prove it, and so your guess is as good as mine. The town was officially incorporated in 1760, the town clock was purchased in 1856 and so was the "the necessary apparatus for the extinguishment of fires." New Hampshire's first state park was also created here, Miller State Park, in 1891 and it is named after General James Miller, a hero of the Battle of Lundy's Lane in the War of 1812.

That's it for today, I am heading home now (I am actually writing this week's diatribe from my office, since I managed to kill my wireless set-up at home and am now faced with an internet-free home) and may just have another beer to finish off the weekend in style.

Hope this finds you all well :)

pet:)