Boston

Boston Molasses Disaster, originally uploaded by zannect.

I've been away for a bit due a cold, some problems with our site host that had my site down for a few days, a relapse into my junior high days of inhaling trashy fantasy novels, and just plain winter laziness. Sorry about that! So, here's a tasty link for you and some food news.

I love love love kale. I haven't always, but in the last couple of years, it's become my second favorite green vegetable (just after spinach). However, this dish may be pushing it into my top spot: boiled kale with a fried egg and toast, from Orangette. It's super easy--maybe 20 minutes of prep work and another 25 minutes or so just to cook by itself; it's quite healthy; and it's tasty far past what you would imagine. I keep meaning to take a picture of it, but I always forget when it's in front of me, because I start to eat immediately. Even if you're not a huge kale fan it's worth checking out.

In other food news, one of my favorite Christmas presents this year was a guided tour of the produce section at Whole Foods, led by Steve, who has just finished a season working on an organic farm. Dave and I came home with a slew of new vegetables that we never cook, including delicata squash (amazing!); fennel (raised soup to a whole new level!); and collards (his suggestion that we braise them with sweet potatoes turned out awesome), as well as some new ideas for stuff we make all the time. We also came home with some new spices to try (rice plum vinegar and gomashio) and some new types of rice (forbidden rice!). I've been cooking a lot more since we moved, and my cooking skills are improving rapidly, so I'm pretty excited to have some new things to try.

And in the sort-of-food-news and sort-of-bizarre-historical-anecdote-leading-to-public-reform folder, today is the 90th anniversary of the Boston Molasses Disaster, in which 2.3 million gallons of molasses flooded the North End after a storage tank burst, killing 21 people and injuring 150. The wall of molasses that exploded out when the tank's rivets failed was moving at 35 mph and was between 8 and 15 feet high, with 2 tons of pressure per foot. The disaster eventually lead to better building regulations. I learned about this as a small child, but I'm not sure it made it into history books outside of New England. You can read about it at a historian's site and on Wikipedia.

Yeah, yeah more excuses and more posts about leaving New York. I've been trying to think of a post the last few days, and honestly, my life has just not been that exciting since I left New York. Or, at least exciting enough to write an interesting post about...there are lots of things I'm excited about (we finished unpacking the apartment; I found a fantastic sandwich shop around the corner from my office; my bangs have finally reached my eyebrows; I set up my drum kit and the cats are obsessed with it)....they just aren't really worth an entire post.

But this morning as I was walking into work, I realized that my new office and my old office perfectly encapsulate the differences between living in New York and living in Boston.

My old office was right on West 125th St, just down the street from the Apollo Theater. It was noisy and always crowded and full of crazy traffic and tour buses and a million things going on. I worked in one of the ugliest buildings (a new-ish concrete monstrosity), surrounded by a combination of decrepit old buildings, restored old buildings, amazing cultural landmarks, and new construction. There were a ton of places to eat soul food or fast food, but it was almost impossible to find a salad for lunch. We shared the building with a range of other organizations and companies, meaning there were always lots of people of all ages and types in the lobby. We were forced to take the elevators up to the third floor as the staircase doors were locked from the outside; sometimes you'd have a nice chat with someone else in the elevator, but I never hated this more than the morning the small child going to the health clinic on the second floor vomited all over the elevator just before the doors opened. I would see tourists in the neighborhood and they usually seemed excited to be there, rather than catatonic as they usually look in midtown or Times Sq.
My office had a long wall of windows overlooking 125th St, facing south, and every time I wandered out of my little cave to look outside, I would see a panorama: just below me, the hustle and bustle of 125th; further away, the skyline of Manhattan. You could see the weather coming in across the city, and the sunset at the right time of year, and hear sirens and car alarms and yelling all the time. My personal office lacked windows, and in fact there was a large conference room and a couple of offices between me and those windows, so I only saw daylight when I left my little office; in the winter that might mean 10 minutes of daylight total, all day. But my office was comfortable enough, and in fact was larger than the bedroom in my Brooklyn apartment. Every major train line and several major bus lines were within walking distance of the office, making it easy to get anywhere in the city; and my coworkers lived everywhere from Washington Heights to Astoria to Cobble Hill to Westchester County. I worked in a number of neighborhoods while I was in New York, and Harlem was the one I liked the best (of my work locations). It felt the most like New York City, full of life and excitement, but it also felt like a neighborhood--I would see the same people on the street every day, there were lots of small businesses (although less and less as time went on), there was a strong sense of history and community.

My new office is in the clock tower of a historic building (not the one pictured above, but similar). It's surrounded by a number of other 200-year old buildings, all built facing a small plaza with trees and benches. It's a gorgeous old brick building surrounded by trees. It's sort of out of the way in relation to public transportation. There is not much traffic and according to my coworkers, it is possible to find free street parking if one gets there early enough. I take a curving staircase up to the third floor, and then ascend to a loft space that's actually in the clock tower, which I share with two other people. (I had to re-arrange my desk to make the hatch to the clock accessible.) My desk faces two large windows, through which I see trees and rooftops, and the weather coming in. It shakes and creaks when it's windy out, and you can actually feel the air coming in when it's stormy. I imagine it will be rather chilly in the winter. At this time of year, we get so much sunlight we have to close a shade in the late afternoon in order to be able to see our computers. Occasionally I hear a siren, but other than that it's just the wind or the building creaking. The best sandwich shop ever is right around the corner, but other than that, there's not much--pretty much every place you can walk to just has sandwiches, salads, and soup; maybe pizza if you're lucky. We share the building with a very fancy design studio, meaning the people I see in the morning are very well dressed and not that friendly, but at least they aren't vomiting in the elevator. (Obviously I have high standards now.) Once in awhile I miss all the buzz and energy. But I realized this morning that at this point in my life, seeing trees every day and being able to look out a window is even better.

Old North Church Steeple, originally uploaded by zannect.

Eric came all the way out from San Francisco to visit us in Boston for Labor Day! Since he had never been to Boston before, it was time for some touring around. And some ice cream eating, and beer drinking. Dave hadn't ever done the full Freedom Trail, and I haven't done it in years and years, so the three of us spent a Sunday walking the whole thing (except for the last stop). Not only was it a nice way to show off Boston, but it turned out to be more interesting than I expected to see it all together. I've seen all the pieces several times, but never done the tour in order. I have to admit most of the history was familiar to me....not from school, but from my many readings of Johnny Tremain. At least it's historically accurate. Mostly.

I learned a lot more while I was putting all the photos up on Flickr. Most of them have at least part of the descriptions from the Freedom Trail's website, if you're curious to learn any more. And we'll take any other first time visitors out for the same trip, except we won't try walking from the USS Constitution to Inman Square again (an extra three miles!). Offer good only for first-timers, though; if you've been to Boston before you're on your own. However, the guided ice cream tour is open to all visitors.