Finn by Jon Clinch

I'm so confused and torn regarding my reaction to this book. Clinch turns some thoughts and traditions about Twain's beloved Huck Finn on its knees. While the writing and storyline was undoubtedly beautiful (in a tragic way of course), I still can't get passed the liberties the author took with, not changing the story so much as changing our perceptions about who Huck and Pap Finn were.

It's an engaging, thought-provoking read. I highly recommend you re-read Huck Finn before this b...more I'm so confused and torn regarding my reaction to this book. Without giving anything away, Clinch turns some thoughts and traditions about Twain's beloved Huck Finn on its knees in his debut novel. While the writing and storyline was hauntingly beautiful, I still can't get passed the liberties the author took with, not changing the story per se, but rather changing our perceptions about who Huck and Pap Finn were. At the same time, I don't think Mark Twain fans will be completely enraged either. Clinch handles Twain's story with the dignity and tenderness it deserves, while still making you question your memory in asking yourself, "Was this a nuance of the original story that I completely missed?" or "Did I sleep through class the day they discussed this particular issue?"

It's an engaging, thought-provoking read. I highly recommend you re-read Huck Finn before this book if you've been many years removed from your last reading.

Poetry Friday

I've noticed that a lot of people who have book blogs post a poem every Friday. Seeing as how I love poetry, I thought I would also indulge in posting a poem every Friday.

Today's poem is by Taylor Mali because after seeing "What Teachers Make" on YouTube, I promptly ordered both of his books. This poem is from his book The Last Time As We Are.


The Call to What We Know

The last thing this world needs
is another poem about flowers,
the passing hours, or the demands of time,
written in language no one understands,
and doesn't rhyme.

Every time I have turned
to words and found or heard a truth
I never knew I'd learned by heart,
it was always proof I was a part
of something bigger than myself,
a communion of dark moonlight
with night ground, or the union
of a kiss forgiving only this:
We the living delight in sound.

Everything's Better with Bacon. But What's Better Than Bacon?

So I'm sitting in my living room, minding my own business, eating Corn Pops for dinner, because I do that sometimes you know - eat cereal for dinner - and I decide to turn on the show The Best Thing I Ever Ate on Food Network. This particular episode I'm watching is all about the best fried foods the featured Food Network stars ever ate.

I'm about midway through the show, enjoying all of the delicious fried goodness they're taunting me with on the TV screen, when all of a sudden, Ted Allen appears and says three words that stopped me dead in my tracks:

Deep. Fried. Bacon.

Shut. Up.

Sriusly?

Mouth. Watering.

Must. Have. The. Bacon.

I actually had to stop my TiVo halfway through the show so I could go upstairs and look up the restaurant that serves deep. fried. bacon. Ted said he had it at The Red Cat in NYC, but as soon as I looked up their menu, deep. fried. bacon. was nowhere to be found. Perhaps the next time my husband and I are planning a trip NYC we will have to call The Red Cat and ask them if they plan on returning deep. fried. bacon. to the menu. Or maybe I will have to live dangerously and try making it myself.

Whatever the case, Corn Pops for dinner is suddenly not so satisfying anymore.

Facebook Taketh Away (Your Time) but it Also Giveth (Your Old Friends Back)

It’s 10 PM on a Saturday night. I’m a young twenty-something woman. I should be out partying with my friends. Instead, I’m at home, glued to Facebook trading insults with an old high school friend whose attempts to swear at me in German using Babel Fish Translator has left him with the unfortunate mistranslation of calling me a donkey instead of a, well, you know.

As I sat there laughing to no one but my computer screen, I couldn’t help but reflect on what a miracle this scene was for me. You might ask yourself why trading German insults back and forth between computers would be considered a miraculous event, but to me it represented how social networking sites like Facebook have helped people reconnect with old friends they’ve lost touch with over the years.

I smiled back at my computer screen and felt a weight lift from my heart. It was as if the past 8 years of not speaking to this friend had just been wiped clean and we were back in high school again, listening to the radio, singing country songs together in his blue Dodge Neon. This moment would have never happened had it not been for Facebook.

I also just recently reconnected with another old friend with whom I had known since 5th grade, but after high school, we just somehow, for no reason in particular, lost touch with each other. When she found me on Facebook, I was joyous. That first message I received from her sent a flood of memories through me of all the good times I spent at her house as a teenager: the haunted housing in October, the quoting lines from Wayne’s World over and over again, the dressing up as Wayne and Garth for Halloween, the gathering for pictures in her front yard before the Homecoming dance. And suddenly, in an instant, we were trading messages back and forth and making plans for a time when we could get together in the near future.

In addition to reconnecting with old friends, Facebook has managed to help keep me from losing touch with my current ones, too. My husband and I have a very close friend of ours who recently graduated from medical school. Her crazy busy schedule, in addition to living 45 minutes from each other, almost led us to drifting apart. But because of Facebook, we’re getting together on a somewhat regular basis now, catching up over tapas and sangria.

There’s no doubt that these sites can consume a very large amount of your time if you’re not careful (and I’ll be the first to admit that I spend way more time on FB than I should), but the dividends can often be much greater than the investment. Through this social networking site, I have actually found that my husband and I are getting together with friends and going out more than we ever used to. We’re making more friends, too, because the people we meet in passing now are no longer people we’ll never see again, but people we can connect with, get to know, and possibly form a new friendship with all because we found them on Facebook.

So yes, please do exercise caution when using social networking sites as we are always warned by the horror stories in the media. But also be open to the possibility that they can change your life for the better. When adulthood sneaks up on us, we somehow let friendships fall by the wayside due to location changes, developing careers, and the formation of marriages and families. What Facebook does is, for a few minutes a day, reminds us that there are people in our lives, outside those we live with, who are important to us too. It keeps us from letting a bucket’s slow leak become empty and dry, as I’m sure has happened to many of our friendships over the years.

So now the question begs, if you’re one of the five people left who has yet to sign up for a social networking site, then I ask you: what are you waiting for? You just might reconnect with someone from your past who’s been in your thoughts over the years but never had the courage to try to contact. Let today be the start of a new journey for those friendships you let slip through your fingers.

If You Want a Rainbow, You've Gotta Put up with the Rain

Traveling to the Pacific Northwest and expecting it not to rain is like going to a steak house and hoping they don't serve red meat. So while we hoped for good weather for our entire trip, we knew that this wasn't the most realistic of desires.

In the end, our 8 day trip to Whistler and Vancouver resulted in only one and a half days of rain. Any more than that and it might have bummed us out, but it was just the right amount to add to the ambiance of being in the Pacific Northwest.







In fact, a trip to North Vancouver's Capilano Suspension Bridge is almost more enjoyable in the rain. It would feel unauthentic to visit a rain forest with the sun out and the temperature outside a balmy 90 degrees. Instead, we happily donned our rain jackets and umbrellas to admire the natural beauty of the coastal temperate rain forest.









Walking around this lush, green area in the rain almost gave the sense of being in an enchanted fairy tale forest. It was as if at any moment, Snow White and her seven dwarfs would come running out from behind a tree to greet you.

Craving Indian? How About a Trip to Vancouver?

In the South Granville neighborhood of Vancouver lies an unassuming restaurant with a sleek black exterior and a purple neon sign. This is an establishment where patrons wait in line before the doors even open and will stand outside in the rain for hours for the opportunity to feast on the delicacies inside. The name of this restaurant is Vij's and critics have hailed it as one of the best Indian restaurants in the world.

Vij's is THE restaurant I wanted to eat at when I realized we were going to Vancouver, and was a little bit of the reason for why I wanted to go there in the first place. I first heard about this restaurant on the Pacific Northwest episode of No Reservations. But then I also saw it featured on Giada's Weekend Getaways. When she said on her show that Vij's is touted as one of the best Indian restaurants in the world, I knew that I wanted to eat there one day. Indian food is slowly inching its way towards being my favorite ethnic food so making a bold statement like "one of the best Indian restaurants in the world"? I sit up and take notice.

Being such a highly-praised, high-end establishment, you might expect that it would be difficult to get a reservation. Not so. You see, Vij does not accept reservations. If you want to eat there, you must do what all the other patrons do: Line up outside the doors before they open at 5:30 and hope that you're part of the first seating.




When we arrived at 4:45, there were only three guys in front of us so we chatted with them for the next 45 minutes. One of the guys was from Atlanta and he told us that when he's in Vancouver on business, he always has to eat here. He also said, much to my surprise, that Vij is there every night and he does come around to everyone's table and talks to them. Unfortunately for us, he was out of town this week so we didn't get to meet him. I thought him being at the restaurant waiting on tables was just a put on for TV when I saw him come to Giada's table on her weekend getaways show. I figured he was waiting on her because there was a camera crew at his restaurant. Lo and behold, he does actually wait on customers every night.

As the minutes ticked by, the line slowly started becoming longer and longer but strangely enough, everyone in line got in for the first seating. The weather must've kept a longer line from forming. It was still a busy dining room though, and it had such a lovely, relaxing atmosphere.







But let's get to the real stuff here: the food. Wow! I don't even know where to begin. First of all, when you are first seated, the hostesses come around and bring everyone a cup of chai and from that point they had me won. They had me at the chai. Once they set those warm mugs of steaming, spicy goodness, I was hooked. But they still continue winning you over even after they warmed you up from spending the past 45 minutes in the rain. They also come around and pass out hors d'oeurves to whet your appetite for the meal ahead. I honestly had no idea what I was eating when they came around because I'm not really familiar with the vernacular of Indian cuisine (other than tandoori, tikka masala, etc.), but I didn't care because they were all delicious!

For an appetizer we ordered what is described on the menu as chickpeas in star anise and date curry on grilled kale.

Now I know this probably doesn't look like much, but let me tell you, I will be talking about this dish for a long time. Not so much for the chickpeas, which were delicious enough, but for the grilled kale. After eating this, it's hard to believe that kale is usually a throw away garnish at most restaurants. Well this kale was definitely NOT worth throwing away. When I raved about it to our waitress she told us that it was marinated in lemon juice and coconut milk and then grilled. Here's why this grilled kale would turn me into a vegetarian if all vegetables tasted like this: IT TASTED LIKE MEAT! Huh? What? A green, hearty vegetable that is marinated and grilled can taste like meat? Well at Vij's it does. And now I'm going to have to try making marinated, grilled kale at home.

Moving on to the main course, Johnathon ordered the beef tenderloin and vegetables with almonds and garlic in a tomato yogurt curry

which I thought was a strange item on a menu in an Indian restaurant because I didn't think Indians ate beef what with cows being sacred an all. But in Vij's cookbook, I read that sometimes Indian restaurants will serve meat based on the palate of the country where they're living. If they don't have strong ties to Hinduism, then serving beef does not pose a dilemma.

I ordered the wine-marinated lamb popsicles in cream curry on turmeric spinach potatoes.

And even though I don't normally like lamb, I decided I was going to order it here because if it's cooked right, I actually like it, and I figured that one of the best Indian restaurants in the world can probably figure out how to cook it right. Well let me tell you, this lamb was definitely cooked right. It was absolutely delicious. And when you goop all that wonderful sauce onto some basmati rice and then sop it up with some naan, that made for one happy woman.

As if the meal couldn't have been perfect enough, we ordered and shared a dessert of Indian pistachio doughnuts in a cardamom syrup. This also came with some chai, and I devoured mine as well as Johnathon's.

I love just about anything with cardamom in it so I thought the doughnuts were delicious, but as I look back and sit here writing about this meal, it was about the experience just as much as the food. All the people who worked there made sure that everyone had an enjoyable dining experience. From the moment they bring out the chai when you first sit down, to the offering curious customers insight into how the food is prepared, you got the sense that they all really wanted you to have, not just a meal, but an experience you'll never forget. If we ever go back to Vancouver, we will definitely be going back, and I will, once again, happily wait in line for my dinner.

And now that my mouth is watering from writing about all this outstanding food, I'm dying for some curry, basmati rice, and some naan to sop it all up! Oh yeah, and some chai too!

The Salt Tasting Room: A Tale of Wine, Cheese, and Salami

While in Vancouver Johnathon and I ate at a restaurant called Salt that I discovered by watching Giada's Weekend Getaways on Food Network. I saw this episode a couple years ago and I vowed back then that if we ever visited Vancouver that we would eat at this restaurant. From the moment you find this place, you know that it's unusual because it is literally in an alley that you would NEVER discover on your own unless you were looking for it. The only real way to find it is by noting the salt shaker flag that hangs high above their door.


From the moment you walk in the place, you know that it just has a cool vibe about it.


Starting with centerpiece bare brick wall and community table

and the blackboard menu of meats, cheeses, and condiments that changes frequently. In fact, we ate here twice because I loved it so much, and there had already been changes made to the blackboard by the second time we visited due to the small quantities they order from the specialty purveyors they get their food from.

In addition to the blackboard menu, they also give out a paper menu to show you their wine list and also the other items they have available like salads, soups, and grilled cheese. The paper menu also explains what constitutes a tasting plate (combo of 3 selections from either meat, cheese or both, 3 condiments and a basket of bread) and the price.

Decisions, Decisions

We eventually decided to do two tasting plates, one with 3 meats, and one with 3 cheeses. For the meat plate, we got the Toscano with fig salami, pancetta salami, and piccantino which is similar to chorizo. The condiments Johnathon chose were Spanish date bread, pickles, and Basque olives.

All of the meat was delicious, but I have to say that the Toscano with fig salami was perfection in the form of dried, cured meat. It had just the right amount of sweet, salty, and herby flavor to make you want to eat a whole pound of it in one sitting (thankfully I didn't do that since I only had a few slices on my plate).

The cheese we selected were Comte (a Gruyere made in France rather than Switzerland), Lincolnshire cheddar, and manchego. The condiments I chose were the date bread, Apricot chutney, and Silkameen honey.

All of the cheeses were delicious, but that Lincolnshire cheddar was really outstanding. Pairing that with the apricot chutney made it salty, sweet, crumbly perfection. That chutney was one of the best things I've ever tasted. It was sweet and had just the smallest titch of curry flavor.

All of these things, had they been brought out individually, did not make for the wonderful experience. It was the combination of great flavors and textures that sent it to the "this is a meal that Beth is going to be talking about for years to come" category. Bringing out a hunk of manchego cheese by itself , though delicious because it is cheese after all, does not impress me. Combining it with the saltiness and herbs of the salami and the sweetness of the honey made it out of this world.

I seriously wanted to lick those tiny bowls clean when there was nothing left on my plate. In fact, I not only wanted to, I did.






Oh! And I forgot to mention the wine! I ordered a glass of chenin blanc made in British Columbia and that is now officially my favorite white wine. It was light and fruity with just enough dryness to make it a wine you have with dinner (or lunch *grin*) rather than a dessert wine. It was so good that I asked our waiter if he could tell me where I could buy it because I know that BC wines cannot be found anywhere in the U.S. - or at least not in middle America U.S. Maybe Pacific Northwest U.S. but certainly not Michigan.

For dessert we got a chocolate tasting plate (which is actually what I was licking in from the bowl in the pictures, but I did the same for my condiments dishes too) and Johnathon got so anxious to eat it that he forgot to let me take a picture of it, thus the chocolate spoon and the hunk taken out of the dark chocolate ganache cake.


After our waiter walked by and laughed at me licking my condiment bowl, and equally laughed at Johnathon for getting a picture (*ahem*, multiple pictures) of it, he handed us our bill, and I divulged how sad I was that we did not have a restaurant like this where we live. On our way out the door, we waved goodbye and I said, "You might see us back before Thursday," and sure enough, he did. Our first encounter at Salt was on a Sunday afternoon. We decided to go back there for our last night in Vancouver to have a memorable "last meal." Even though we had so many great memories, both food and travel related, they all seem to be competing with each other for who wants to be favorite.

I know! Mountain biking was my favorite!

Yeah. Notsomuch.