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Well, MFO and the Momster are headed down the road for Richmond with a friend from SMCHS to attend the annual meeting of the AASLH. Yikes! More acronyms! Well, the friend is from the St. Mary’s County Historical Society, and they’re going to the American Association of State and Local History’s meeting. There’s stuff on preservation of photographs, papers, and stuff like that. They will be returning full of knowledge on Saturday. I doubt that there will be any dining opportunities for them..


So, back here there’s not much going on except chain restaurants sprouting like mushrooms. I’ve been having some time to peruse some of the magazines that arrive almost daily, and there are a few factoids that might be worth passing along. In no particular order…

September Feast Magazine (another St. Louis foodie freebie): A nice article about Bob’s Seafood, the legendary (well, maybe quite famous) fish market that began as an open air stall in the “Loop” in University City that was stocked weekly by a run to Louisiana by (guess who) Bob Mepham. Now located on Olive Boulvard they continue to supply many of the better known restaurants in St. Louis with seafood (Annie Gunn’s, Monarch, etc.). While still in St. Louis, I used to frequent the store on the loop for our seafood. Eclectic place, but increase in business demanded a larger venue. There was also an unrelated little article on “berberechos”. It is left to the reader to find out what those are…

Sept/Oct Imbibe: A nice article on Irish Whiskey. Another exercise for the interested reader is to research the use of the letter “e” in the word, both in America and abroad. Anyway, the gist of the article is the exploding popularity of Irish whiskey. Imbibe’s thrust is toward the “mixologist” side of things with lots of esoteric multi ingredient stuff so they sully the straight whiskey with recipes for such drinks as:

The Lost Barrell

1 ½ Oz blended Irish Whiskey (okay, check)
¾ Oz. Domaine de Conton ginger liqueur (what?)
½ Oz. fresh lemon juice (easy)
½ Oz. demerara syrup [1:1] (what the hell is that?)

Guess I won’t be making that tonight.. I’ll stick with my DMOTHRWAT.. Anyway, they list several Irish offerings, most of which I tried when I was in Ireland. Kelbeggan; Powers; Redbreast; Greenore (my favorite); although they left off Paddy’s..

September bon appétit (The Restaurant Issue): features the “Best New Restaurants of 2011” as selected by Andrew Knowlton, who calls himself the “BA Foodist”. Yuchhh… Anyway his top choice is Husk, in Charleston, SC, and features their pork chop with wood fired leeks, and spicy kale. Looks good. We’ll spare the rest, but cities include San Francisco, Seattle, Robbinsdale (MN), Philly, Chicago, LA, Long Island City, Austin, and Cambridge. Somehow, the Olive Garden in California, Maryland didn’t place. Oh, neither Gwyneth Paltrow or the word “best” made the cover..

The Wine Advocate, Issue 196. An exhaustive review of wines from California’s Central Coast, and Washington, Part I. Interesting reading from the popularly available Central Coast labels like Au Bon Climat; Cambria; Fess Parker (a $50 Pinot with 93 points); Ojai; etc., to lesser (or un)known bottles. An example would be a box of three bottles and one magnum of 2008 Syrah Cumulus Vineyard from the Next of Kyn, which Mr. Galloni (one of Mr. Parker’s stable of tasters) awarded 94 -96 points. Oh, the price? A mere $1,100. Washington weighs in with not only the familiar Columbia Crest (mostly upper 80’s points), but many smaller vineyards. A nice reference to keep.

Off (Current) Topic

And if you haven’t given up yet, I’m going to sneak in a little, well, not quite a rant, but an observation on the recently concluded US Open Tennis Tournament. A field of mostly non-American players with multisyllabic names but generally the stars of the tennis universe. In every sport, there are what I would term “gentlemen and ladies” of the sport. Tom Watson and Julie Inkster in Golf, Cal Ripken in baseball, Rebecca Lobo or maybe Cheryl Miller in basketball, and maybe you could throw in Bill Russell. Players who just play at a high level, they don’t dance, taunt, scream, or pound their chest. They just play and play well. Players like that in the US Open were few and far between. I think maybe Roger Federer can join that crowd, but who else? It’s hard for me to endure those screaming women or grunting men shot after shot after shot. And I guess have to admit that I was pleased that the coronation of Serena Williams was side tracked by an unassuming Sam Stosur. Serena stopped short of threatening to shove another tennis ball down the throat of a lines person, but again melted down at the thought that she had to play by the rules and not scream “come on!” while the ball was in play. And what (to me) is worse, after the match she’s all sweetness and light, just a smiling charmer. Right.


Although I might occasionally scream



DFD(!)