...like a blog and sometimes you don’t. Aside from our luncheon at “Zee” the other
day haven’t had any food experiences worth noting lately, and for once we haven’t
traveled anywhere exciting either.
But, a couple of
things over the weekend that were fun, plus maybe a few notes from one of my
latest magazines might be worth your time.
Books
Every year the Friends of the (St. Mary’s County) Libraries
(FOL) holds their book sale at the Fairgrounds wherein thousands (yes,
thousands) of books are for sale that helps to support the libraries. It was pushed back a month this year to avoid
the seemingly unavoidable bad weather that seems to haunt the sale. This year it will be the 22nd
through the 24th of April. As
usual there will be a building full of fiction, non-fiction, children’s, and
rare and unusual books. For a couple of
bucks you can get a full fledged hard cover book (usually) in pristine
condition, or paperbacks for less.
Amazing values, which attract dealers from all over the eastern
seaboard.
I pretty much yak about this every year, but it is worth
your time and treasure if you can fit it in.
Although the sale is next weekend, activity began last weekend. All year, people bring books to the back end
of the Leonardtown Library which gradually fills up
We got there a little later than usual this year, and this
represents about a third of what was there originally.
Volunteers with strong backs help load them into a couple of
box trucks
And an armada of “friends” vehicles
Including the MOMSTER
Then take the short drive over to the Fairgrounds,
where they are unloaded into the correct building,
This week will be spent in unboxing, and sorting the books
into categories on the tables. You
normally can find the Feeder helping with the cookbooks.
Anyway, hope you can come out. Friday is “members only” day, but you can
join the FOL on the spot and get first crack at the books. During the sale I hang out in the Non Fiction
building. On Sunday, with help from volunteers from Lexington Park Rotary Club, ALL leftover books are loaded in Gaylords, put in trucks, and taken up to another Rotary Club in Parole who then distribute them to various schools, libraries, and charities, service people, etc., world wide.
So each year, the FOL starts with zero books and still fills up the Leonardtown libraries "back room"
Chapel
After spending part of the morning at the Library and
Fairgrounds I detached and went down to Historic St. Mary’s City to fulfill the
Docent Duty I signed up for, sitting at the Brick Chapel and telling the story
to people that visit. Always a crap
shoot on numbers of visitors, and in the first few hours, this was typical of
the patrons
However, a few two legged folks showed up. By the way, the famous Lead Coffins are now
on display back in their original location under the floor of the left (or
right) transept. Funny about church
geography; it always kind of hinges on if you’re looking AT the altar, or ON
the altar looking at the congregation.
Anyway, the coffins are on the side toward Route Five, which of course
was not there in 1667!
MFO found a new piece of “Office Furniture” for me which I debuted
Saturday
You might notice the chairs in the background inside the
chapel
Which was set up for…. no not a service, but a concert by
the St. Maries Musica choral group, which was scheduled for three. So, along about one forty five or so, the
performers began to show up, and eventually rehearsed, sort of giving a preview
The interior acoustics of the chapel are not suited to
screaming kids, but they are lovely for such vocal groups, string quartets and
the like.. I stayed and listened to most
of the concert, but departed for the end after a long day. By the way, there is ANOTHER concert this
coming weekend, performed by Ping, the choral group from St. Mary’s
College. I believe that starts at one.
No Show’s and Factoids
I think I’ve mentioned that one of the little print
magazines I get is Restaurant Hospitality which is kind of geared to the
business side of running restaurants.
What millennials really want,
how to increase menu interest, etc. The
editor usually throws out a question for the readership.
This month he was talking about the issues of
“no-shows”, a constant problem for the restaurants. How many times have you sat waiting for “your”
table, watching empty tables created by the thoughtless people who don’t cancel
if they know they can’t make it. That
sort of thing leads naturally to “over booking” to cover their butts. Editor recounted an experience at an (unnamed)
restaurant in DC where he arrived with three friends for an 8:30 reservation,
only to find that the place was a madhouse with apparently every (overbooked)
group showing along with walk ins. After waiting for an hour and a half in the
bar, it appeared that they were no closer and left. Then, at 11:30, he got a call from the
hostess stating their table was ready.
So his question to the readership was: “how do you handle no-shows”. Will let you know, and don’t do it!
the ‘toids:
-A little box on page 18 says look for beef prices to be
dropping 10 – 17 percent this year for all primal cuts.
-Like everybody else in the world, they bestow “Editor’s
Choice” awards. They do, however, have some unusual
categories, samples:
- Best Restaurant Name: Sexy Tacos/Dirty Cash (Harlem, NYC)
- Most Creative Cocktail Menu: Butchertown Grocery, Louisville. Menu is based on lyrics of Tom Waits; “Stirring my Brandy with a nail”; “get behind the mule”. A bit esoteric for me
- Ingredient of the Year: Whole Roasted Cauliflower; kind of looks like a bloomin’ onion. Several places, Domenica NOLA; Etch, Nashville
- Best Chef Tattoo: Mindy Segal (James Beard 2012 Pastry Chef award winner) of Chicago; whole back devoted to a reproduction of her grandmother’s china. Picture included….
- Best use of Leftover Product: Chef Franey of Monterey’s Restaurant 1833 makes his own ricotta cheese, resulting a lot of left over whey byproducts. Fabricated the cocktail “No Whey” of that along with Remy Martin Cognac, lemon, and simple syrup.
- Cleverest Blog Closing: DFD
Okay, I made that one up..
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