Small adventures

-
I just got back from a belated excursion to get food. There's this cultural difference between France and the US that I still can't get used to. You know that time of day when, in the US, only those privileged enough to have stable, 9-5 jobs get to go home for the day? Yeah, everyone gets off of work at that time in France. The strange thing is that, except for the nicer restaurants, which are open later because people seem to eat dinner around 7 and for a couple of hours, only businesses owned by foreigners are open at night. You can always find kebab in this city -- always. And almost always a conversation with the clerk about the oddities of moving to a foreign country while your fries are cooking.

Anyway, so I was looking for somewhere that was still open and would sell me a sandwich of some kind, when I finally came across a place. They were pretty well out of sandwiches, as it was very near to closing time, so I picked one that kind of looked like egg salad, even though that didn't sound like a really great idea. It was in fact nothing like egg salad -- it was a sandwich on a baguette consisting of artificial crab (the internet says it's made of white fish), slices of hard boiled eggs, lettuce, tomato, and horseradish sauce. It was one of the most confusing things I've eaten in a while. I can't say I really enjoyed it, but it wasn't terrible. I'm trying to be more adventurous with eating things. A few days ago we went to a pizza parlor for lunch and Maria had me try capiaccio -- who knew I would be able to bring myself to eat raw beef? It wasn't bad, but I was a little too squeamish to really enjoy it I think.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2025 Year in Review

-
Image
 Here’s a quick recap of my highlights for the year 2025. January We began the New Year in Omaha and roundtripped home to Knoxville through an ice storm. I learned to make orecchiette by hand. Construction finally began on my long-awaited lab space at work. February I baked a lot of sourdough using the starter that survived our move home from Australia. I stayed inside a lot with the cat on my lap. I saw Adeem the Artist play the Blue Plate Special in Knoxville and went to Nashville to see Christian Lee Hutson play the Blue Room. I gave a seminar in Pittsburgh, which was fun. Construction continued on the lab. My mom had spinal surgery, necessitating a trip to Oklahoma. March In March we protested unsavory actions by our government, including massive threats to science funding. I saw Bright Eyes in Knoxville and in a cavern in Middle Tennessee and Tulsa with Stephanie. I visited some Cherokee historical sites with my folks in NE OK before I drove home to TN. I stopped in Nashville ...
Read more

2022 in Concerts

-
Image
Living in Perth had many perks, but the biggest downside was the lack of live music. Since moving home from Australia, I've been making up for lost time and seeing as many shows as I can. It was fitting that my first run of shows back was to see Bright Eyes, my longtime fave, who were touring in support of their long-awaited record Down in the Weeds Where the World Once Was , released at the beginning of the pandemic. Here's a list of what I saw in 2022. The Bright Eyes Tour 1. Bright Eyes with Christian Lee Hutson at the Sylvee, Madison, WI 3-25-22 2. Bright Eyes with Christian Lee Hutson at the Chicago Theatre, Chicago, IL 3-26-22 3. Bright Eyes with Christian Lee Hutson at the Pageant, Saint Louis, MO 3-30-22 4. Bright Eyes with Christian Lee Hutson at Old Forester's Paristown Hall, Louisville, KY 3-31-22 5. Christian Lee Hutson album release in-store performance at Grimey's in Nashville, TN 4-1-22     Best day ever. We ran into Christian in our hotel in Louisville a...
Read more

What I Read This Year

-
I've been accustomed in my adulthood to reading between 40 and 60 novels a year -- almost entirely science fiction and fantasy. But this year, I spent virtually all of my free time trying to learn Cherokee. It used up all the time an energy I might usually spend on fiction. The books I managed to read this year were largely in support of my language learning, and uncharacteristically and disproportionately skewed toward non-fiction. Here's the list: Cherokee related: Original Teachings: Designed to Stand as One: Early Keetowah Teachings and Traditions by Crosslin Fields Smith Think Cherokee: A Cherokee Language Student Reference by JW Webster Cherokee Reference Grammar by Brad Montgomery-Anderson Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World by Christopher B. Teuton A Lifetime of Healing by Crosslin Fields Smith Journeying into Cherokee: Help and Encouragement for Learning the Cherokee Language by Ed Fields and Mary Rae Other Non-Fiction: The Frogs and Toa...
Read more