Barbara and I just got back from our first time at Gaslight Brasserie du Coin, and it won’t be our last. Mostly excellent food, excellent service, and free parking — in the South End! — what more could one ask for?
Cheaper prices, I suppose. Gaslight is definitely on the pricey side… but no more so than any other first-rate restaurant in Boston.
We arrived 35 minutes before our reservation time and were seated immediately. The restaurant has a very French ambiance. Though surprisingly large, it immediately feels welcoming. Our server, Lily, was both friendly and professional — just the right combination. It was (surprisingly) not too noisy, considering that a group of 14 arrived halfway through our dinner to sit at the next table. Many reviewers have reported that Gaslight is too loud, so maybe we were just lucky. Or maybe it was because we were there on a Tuesday.
Barbara started with a shaved beet salad, which she found a bit stronger than she likes, partly because the beets were raw and partly because the dressing contained a lot of horseradish. Not being that much of a beet fan, I can’t comment. But I started with a first-rate French onion soup, unquestionably the best I have had in years. It was rich and hearty, probably because it contained some shredded truffled short ribs.
For our entrees, Barbara ordered steak frites medium rare, and I ordered duck confit with roasted garlic potatoes and an interesting salad. The steak turned out to be rare, not medium rare; our server graciously agreed, whisked it away, and returned in a couple of minutes with the steak appropriately unrarefied. My duck was great, as were the accompaniments. We also ordered a side of haricots verts to share; they were excellent too. While portions were on the small side, we had more than enough to eat, unlike some of the Open Table reviewers.
I ordered the crème brulée for dessert. It was perfectly prepared, though the crust was cold and they were out of the promised fresh berries that were supposed to accompany it. The server compensated by providing a lovely disk of candied cherries, figs, and kumquats. My dessert was also accompanied by a well-made double espresso.
The whole thing came to $154 including wine, tax, and tip. As I say, not cheap — but not outrageous either. By the way, that free parking is in a supervised parking lot.
Our quest for new dining experiences in Dorchester continues with Harp & Bard, a follow-up to our recent visit to Ledge. Barbara and I — this time with our friends Al and Melanie — enjoyed our meal enough to be willing to return. Like Ledge, we have a renovated bar turned into a real restaurant that appeals too much to kids while still being too much of a bar, both features resulting in too much noise. (Is this some kind of trend?) But the food was more consistent, and all four of us were pleased with our dinners. The one real exception was the French onion soup, which I had to try in order to compare it with the same item at Ledge. Unfortunately someone had goofed massively in the kitchen, as I fished out six — count them, six — bay leaves in my one cup of soup! After performing the essential laurelectomy I was able to enjoy the soup without being overwhelmed by the scent and taste of bay leaves, which shouldn’t have been left in the soup in the first place even if there had been only one of them; six was a ridiculous quantity.
Oh well, enough of that rant. My companions report excellent corn-and-bacon chowder; we also were pleased with the Caesar salad, the high-quality sliders (an entree-sized appetizer), the perfectly prepared mussels, and the excellent prime rib, which was cooked exactly as ordered (very differently for Melanie and for me, an indication of success on their part). Wine was OK but disappointing. Finally, I have to say that I’m impressed with their new logo:
So, on the whole it’s a thumbs-up for the Harp & Bard, despite a few reservations. (No, not that kind of reservations. It’s not that sort of restaurant.)
Barbara and I, along with our friend Mary, were disappointed with Ledge, the newest restaurant in the up-and-coming Dorchester dining scene. It would probably be a fine place for lunch, but we were unimpressed with our dinner there. The most jarring thing was the atmosphere — oddly both too much like a bar and too full of young kids, neither being conducive to the quiet dining experience we had expected. Service was correspondingly erratic. The food — this is beginning to sound like a theme — was of inconsistent quality, featuring steak of mediocre quality, adequate onion soup, routine mac and cheese, and excellent vegetables. Probably one could put together a good meal here if one knew what to order, but there are too many other better dining options around to make it worth returning to Ledge.
I’ve written about dBar twice before: on January 17, 2006, and on February 15, 2008. It has maintained its high standards. Barbara had mussels, followed by steak tacos, and she reports that both were excellent. I started with a scrumptious duck confit with lentils — how could I resist? — followed by a perfectly prepared tuna ceviche.
As our appetizers were being served, the entire experience was enhanced by the entrance of two men, accompanied by the Wedding March: they were holding their wedding reception right there in dBar! (It’s all one big room, so there was no private space, although the bar area is marked off by a half-height wall.)
Apparently I’m reviewing one of Archer Mayor’s novels each year. I see that I wrote about St. Alban’s Fire on February 3, 2007; and I wrote about The Second Mouse on March 8, 2008. Unfortunately I have to report that The Catch is not up to the standard of those two earlier books, nor is it up to the standard of the rest of Mayor’s Vermont series.
This is not to say that The Catch is badly written. It’s workmanlike enough, and at least I never wanted to abandon it partway through. The main characters are developed in somewhat further depth than in previous works in the series — better than no development at all, but still disappointing. Some of the secondary characters are intriguing. The clash among various police agencies is moderately interesting, but it’s overwhelmed by their cooperation. The geographic setting is expanded from Vermont to Maine and to Dorchester, with the three locations playing off one another to create some mild interest; the reader does gain something of a sense of the vastness of the state of Maine and some characteristics of its fishing industry. But it’s all superficial.
And what about Dorchester? First, you’ll have to know that the plot revolves around drug dealers and drug smuggling. And so of course you’re supposed to think of South Boston and Dorchester — and Dot Ave in particular, right? Well, no…that’s one of the things that irritates me in The Catch. Here’s an example:
She gave him an address in Boston, on Dorchester Avenue — nicknamed “Dot Ave” among cops, and infamous as a drug and gang hotbed.
We’ll forgive Mayor for the “among cops” qualification, since it’s known as Dot Ave among everyone; that’s not what bothers me. Later it becomes clear that they’re talking about the northern segment of Dot Ave — in Southie — not the rest of it in Dorchester. But still we have paragraphs like this one:
In some ways, Maine was like a frat party. The Dorchester people, they were after your blood — there were turf battles, ethnic issues, real down-and-out gunfights.
Now I’m not denying that there are drug busts, turf battles, ethnic issues, and gunfights in Dorchester and Southie. Of course there are. But why does everyone in this novel take it for granted that that’s where you look if you’re after gangs and drug dealers in Boston? I can’t readily find any appropriate map or figures from different neighborhoods, but a quick search shows plenty of drug busts in Allston, Charlestown, Roxbury, West Roxbury, and every other neighborhood in Boston.
Maybe I should refer Mayor to Whalehead King’s regular paeans to Dorchester, even if their enthusiasm is occasionally over the top.
The southern half of Dorchester is becoming known for its new restaurants, especially if you extend the southern edge a bit into Milton. As you know from my brief review of Mrs. Jones, I’ve already written about one of these new restaurants. We still haven’t tried Ledge or Abby Park, but yesterday Barbara and I had a first-rate dinner at 88 Wharf, located unsurprisingly at 88 Wharf St. As you can see on the map, this restaurant is actually in Milton, but it’s only about 200 feet from the Dorchester border as the crow flies. Or, if you happen to have a car rather than a crow, you’ll have to venture a little further (about 500 feet) into Milton. But don’t worry; it’s not scary. Here’s the map:
Anyway, the atmosphere was slightly elegant but still welcoming and comfortable. Service was perfect: prompt, attentive, and appropriately chatty, but never rushed or overbearing. (Are you beginning to sense a theme here?) When we ordered a bottle of wine that they turned out to have run out of, the waiter offered us a choice of two somewhat comparable but higher-priced wines for the price of the one we had ordered. So we got a Zaca Mesa Syrah for the price of a Seghesio Zin. Both Barbara and I really liked the perfect Caesar salad, even though at first I didn’t taste the promised anchovies, which turned out to be a subtle ingredient of the dressing. Barbara then had an excellent short-ribs stroganoff, which was served over papardelle noodles, along with a side of properly cooked green beans. I had the lamb shank — why is it so hard to find lamb in restaurants these days? — which came with barley and kale. The flavors of all three merged wonderfully to produce a memorable dish.
I wasn’t intending to have dessert, but I couldn’t pass up the “traditional crème brulée,” balanced by a large cup of strong, black coffee. The crème brulée was indeed traditional; more to the point it was smooth and perfectly prepared. A fitting end to a fine meal. As General MacArthur and his wife said, “We shall return.”
Earlier today I just happened to make a small remark to my junior class, complimenting them (and indirectly their parents) on how well brought up they were. The context was that two students had gone out of their way to apologize (for things that weren’t even their fault). So I said that it was great to see that Weston students knew how to behave and were typically polite, in contrast to the usual stereotype of teens as viewed by the general public. This kind of interaction always puts me in a good mood, the same as when students say thank-you as they leave the classroom. (There are always two or three who do this after any class — not just upperclassmen, not just honors students — a fact that astonishes my adult friends who remember their own high-school experiences.)
And now for the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say.
In my Honors Geometry class slightly later in the day, a freshman raises his hand and asks me in front of the whole class, “Do you live in the ghetto in Dorchester?” This offensive question demands an immediate response from me, and fortunately the rest of the class sits frozen; no one laughs or rewards this kid in any way. I tell him that I am offended by the question and that I prefer to say that I live in the inner city, not the ghetto…and then we return to geometry, since I don’t want to pursue this matter any further. Maybe I should….
But of course this ironic combination of incidents in two classes causes a flurry of thoughts in my head:
- I remind myself that my generalization about polite Weston students was just that: a generalization. Of course there are exceptions. But I do believe that the exceptions are surprisingly rare. I’ll notice maybe a couple of incidents of rudeness a month. As I think I remarked in an earlier post, many students even say thank-you when I hand them a test. After all, it’s the right thing to do.
- Then I think of my own experience back in my first year here. Weston High School is a remarkably tough school for new teachers — and I mean “new to Weston,” not merely new to teaching. With rare exceptions (like our new math teachers this year), teachers new to Weston find it initially very troubling to cope with the degree of entitlement among some Weston students — it’s definitely not a majority of students, but there are still too many. It took me about a year to adjust. Ater that year I’ve loved teaching here. I can’t quite untangle the apparent clash between this observation and the one in my first paragraph above. Have students changed since my first year at Weston? Maybe…but that wouldn’t explain why other new teachers in recent years have had experiences similar to the one I had 13 years ago. Have I changed? Maybe that’s more likely.
- Next I wonder whether these observations are unique to Weston. I have only three groups that I can compare, or perhaps four if you subdivide the data in a certain way:
- kids who live in Weston and attend Weston High School
- those who live in Boston (or elsewhere) and attend Weston High School through the Metco program or because their parents are town employees
- those who live in Boston and attend various Boston public schools during the school year plus the Crimson Summer Academy in the summer
- those who live in Cambridge or elsewhere and attend Cambridge Rindge & Latin or various charter or parochial schools in the area during the school year plus the Crimson Summer Academy in the summer.
The bottom line is that all four groups are approximately equally polite, so my observations are not unique to Weston. At least among these four groups, rude remarks are notable for their scarcity. I can’t help but be reminded of the words of W.S. Gilbert in the immortal* Gilbert & Sullivan operetta Princess Ida:
His wise remarks are valued by his court
As precious stones.
And for the self-same cause.
Like precious stones, his sensible remarks
Derive their value from their scarcity.
*How can it be immortal when so few people in the general public have even heard of this operetta? Oh well, don’t get me started on the taste of the general public.
This year’s Halloween was the best and the worst. Let’s save the best for last. So the first question is, “How many trick-or-treaters did we get this year?” For perspective, we need to know that Barbara and I just happened to go out for dinner on Halloween in both 2008 and 2007, so we weren’t at home for visitors (cough, cough). But in 2006 we got over 200 trick-or-treaters. So we loaded up on lots of candy for this year, just in case.
End result? 37.
What a disappointment. I guess I’ll have to dream up lots of class activities for which candy will be a suitable prize.
Now onto the plus side. At Weston High School this year’s Halloween Assembly was definitely the best ever — at least for my 13 years there. The level of enthusiasm was extremely high, as was the participation rate. Last year, for example, I don’t think more than 10% of the freshmen dressed up, but it seemed that about 50% of this year’s freshmen were in costume. There was similarly high participation among the sophomores, juniors, and seniors, as well as the faculty. Here are some pictures.
As you see, my colleague, Jim McLaughin, dressed as Rock — part of the Rock, Paper, Scissors trio, of course:
But the highlights of the assembly were three groups of students. One pair came as two bunches of grapes, one as the Village People, and one as Kiss. While the Village People stole the show with their rousing performance of YMCA, the grand prize went to Kiss.
I was recently asked whether a Boston voter should always vote for the full allotment of four at-large City Council candidates, or whether bullet voting made sense. I unhelpfully replied, “It depends.”
It occurred to me that I had already dealt with this issue four years ago. So read that link if you want to read the mathematical arguments (actually, not too much math!) for or against bullet voting, depending on the situation.
After several enthusiastic recommendations from friends, Barbara and I decided to try the take-out from Mrs. Jones, a small restaurant at 2255 Dorchester Avenue in Lower Mills, Dorchester. We are pleased to report an enthusiastic thumbs-up. For an exceptionally reasonable price we got two dinners of fried chicken wings with assorted sides — cole slaw, candied yams, stuffing, mac & cheese, and cornbread — which provided not only Sunday dinners for the two of us but also another meal’s worth of leftovers for two. Almost everything was delicious (other than the overcooked macaroni), so we are recommending Mrs. Jones to all our friends. Aside from a tiny counter, with maybe four seats, it’s entirely take-out. For more details, check out the reviews in Hidden Boston and Yelp.
First of all, if you’re one of my students, you should not read this post, since you’re under 21 and know nothing about wine.
Yesterday afternoon we were introduced to “Dorchester’s best-kept secret,” the Boston Winery, at a fundraiser for the Dorchester Historical Society (DHS). You probably never knew that there’s a winery in Dorchester — in fact, you probably never knew that there was one anywhere in Boston. I, at any rate, never knew that. But in fact the Boston Winery has been around for a few years, and not only makes its own wines but also provides customers with the opportunity to make their own.
The fundraiser consisted of a tour of the winery and a tasting of several varietals, including Syrah, Cabernet, Zin, and Merlot. I was quite surprised at the high quality of the wines. That may be due to the fact that the grapes come from California (in contrast, say, to the undrinkable wines from upstate New York). The winery is owned by the family that owns the Venezia Restaurant next-door, and is located in a beautiful, renovated old factory. Check it out; it’s located on Ericsson Street, which you’ve probably never heard of — but that’s appropriate, since you’ve never heard of the Boston Winery either. It’s right on the waterfront, in the Port Norfolk section of Dorchester.
This evening’s Taste of Dorchester event was a great success. When I moved to Dorchester in 1985, I never would have guessed that there would soon be a couple of dozen good restaurants in this part of Boston — and with such a wonderful diversity. Among the places providing all-you-can-eat (actually, more-than-you-can-eat) food at the IBEW Hall were Chau Chow (Chinese), Saigon Seafood (Vietnamese), Shanti (Indian/Bangladeshi), Ashmont Grill (local gourmet), Tavolo (Italian), Blarney Stone (eclectic, no longer Irish as the name suggests), Greenhills (I guess they’re still Irish), Cesaria (Cape Verdean), Irie (Jamaican), Belle Cuisine (Haitian), Big Moe’s (ribs) — I could go on, but you get the idea! Come to Dorchester and try them out. As we like to say, it’s no farther from Arlington to Dorchester than it is from Dorchester to Arlington.
How nice to see a website that actually recognizes Dorchester as a neighborhood of Boston! Povo not only lists it prominently, but its description is an accurate portrayal of Dorchester’s many virtues:
Dorchester is the largest geographic and most populated neighborhood in the city of Boston. Home to Dot Ave., it is also Boston’s most diverse neighborhood, with large pockets of African Americans, Irish, Vietnamese, Caribbean, and South and Central American residents. In recent years, the neighborhood has seen an influx of young working professionals, working artists (in areas like Lower Mills, Peabody Square, and Savin Hill), and a growing GLBT community along Dorchester Avenue, while it’s still predominantly a working class neighborhood and a thriving center of immigration. The neighborhood also includes vast economic diversity. Housing varies incredibly from housing projects in places like Bowdoin/Geneva and Franklin Field to stately Victorian homes in places like Ashmont Hill and Melville Park.
Contrast this paragraph with the usual treatment. Other websites almost always do one of the following:
- They ignore Dorchester completely, because they think it has little to offer out-of-towners. For example, here’s Fodor’s list of “Places to explore” in Boston:
- Alternatively, they notice nothing about Dorchester except for its crime, which is so well publicized by the media. For example, here’s a sentence from a movie review written halfway across the country, in Madison, Wisconsin:
The Dorchester neighborhood is a tough one, mostly lower working class, dotted with slummy bars where drug-related shootings are a regular occurrence.
So check out Povo for the straight scoop with a positive POV that’s not written by the real-estate industry.
The thorny question of grading took a new twist yesterday afternoon. I’ve discussed grading before — in my posts of 11/30/2005 and 12/20/2007 — and I’m not going to rehash those arguments. Sometimes I’m wrong, but on these issues I’m still right. Here was the new twist:
Yesterday I was returning a test that had been given to six sections of Algebra II, taught by three different teachers. We had agreed on the questions, we had agreed on the number of points per question, and we had even agreed on a detailed rubric for grading (1 point for constructing the right matrix, 1 point for indicating a product, 1 point for calculating the product correctly, etc.). But we had not yet agreed on a scale, since there was no way we could feel confident about that until we had looked at some sample papers and had agreed on what constituted competent work. (As indicated earlier, we create a scale not by percentages and definitely not by a curve, but by examining student work and converting the lowest competent work into a low B and so forth.) Anyway, I explained to the class that Ms. P was out today and therefore I could give them only their raw scores. One student asked me what the scale was likely to be.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I can’t make that decision unilaterally. I know what I think it should be, but I have to consult with Ms. P and Ms. F first.”
“Can’t you give us some idea?” he pleaded.
“Well, all I can say is that if you got more than 90% right, you’re unlikely to benefit much from a scale. Where could your grade go anyway? But if you got, say, somewhere in the 70s, you might possibly end up with a B. People with lower raw scores are the ones who need the benefit of a scale, especially those who ran out of time but otherwise did good work.”
“You must be a Democrat,” was his astonishing reply.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because Republicans believe in treating everyone equally.”
At that point I told the student that I didn’t want to go there and was not going to continue the conversation. I suppose some of my Weston students might really buy the idea that Republicans believe in treating everyone equally, but tell it to my Dorchester students and neighbors. In the famous words of Anatole France, “The law in its infinite majesty forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread.”
What do you do if you’re at a restaurant and there’s a celebrity at the next table? I’m told that Europeans ignore celebrities and let them enjoy their privacy, but Americans all too often have to say hello, get an autograph, and so forth. I’ve written several times before about the Ashmont Grill — see my posts of 12/31/06, 7/19/08, and 12/23/08, for instance — and that’s where Barbara and I saw Governor Deval Patrick and his wife sitting at the next table yesterday along with two other couples. Fortunately, the other patrons in the restaurant were all polite and paid no attention. No one came over for an autograph, no one came over to complain about taxes or the Mass Pike, and I even resisted taking advantage of this opportunity to lobby for Metco.
Incidentally, even before spotting the governor, I realized something unusual about the clientele at the Ashmont Grill these days. Although Dorchester is racially very diverse, that has not usually been the case with its restaurants. Typically customers at any given restaurant are either 95–100% white or 95–100% black. It’s not exactly segregation, but it’s painfully close to that. But the Ashmont Grill is cheerfully mixed. I didn’t do a headcount, but it was very clear that the black/white ratio was somewhere between 1:4 and 1:2, a much healthier balance than I usually see.
Speaking of which, go to A Taste of Dorchester on April 30! The mixture of restaurants at that event will certainly guarantee a diverse crowd.
Chalk up another plus or two for Dorchester.
Over the past few weeks, a number of my sophomores have been trying to figure out my birthday. All they knew was that it was somewhere in February. Even though I had told them that one of my students (now a senior) had figured it out two years ago in five minutes through clever Internet research, and even though several of them read this blog, they were getting nowhere. It all turned into a game: they would come in every day and ask, “Is today your birthday?” And every day I would say, “No.”
They made sure that I promised that my birthday was not on a weekend, nor in school vacation week. Finally, after several hints about research techniques (especially from a colleague, who pointed out that this is a searchable blog), Irene, Seena, and Tricia figured out my birthday with two days to spare.
So, today really was my birthday. Barbara and I just got back from dinner at Sel de la Terre, our favorite birthday spot. Earlier I reviewed this restaurant for Barbara’s birthday last year and for my birthday three years ago. Sel de la Terre continues its excellent and nearly perfect tradition. We were worried that they might be spreading themselves too thin, since they now have a third location, but our worries turned out to be unfounded. Barbara started with mussels with ceci (which I call chick peas and Barbara insists on calling garbanzo beans); these came in a delicious tomato-y broth but with too much fennel for her taste. I started with a competent French onion soup; it was very hot and rich in flavor, though the cheese could have been more melted. For her entree, Barbara had tiny crab cakes with rosemary whipped potatoes. Both the crab cakes and the potatoes were first-rate. I chose rack of lamb with lima beans, scallions, and whipped potatoes. The lamb was luscious and flavorful, cooked rare than the medium-rare that I had ordered, but that was fine with me: I love rare lamb. We had a nice bottle of a big red wine, Les Arbousiers from Domaine La Remejeanne, a reasonably priced but high-quality 2005 Cotes de Rhone. For dessert we shared a yummy chocolate espresso molten cake with espresso ice ream and cocoa cream; I think they took the calories out before assembling it, at least I hope so. After presenting us with the check, which was somewhat lower than last year’s, they gave us a freshly baked scone and corn muffin to take home.
I particularly want to commend the waitress for being consistently careful to ensure that neither the breads nor anything I ordered contained tree nuts, after ona single mention of my nut allergy. And they put a birthday candle on the cake, without needing any reminder: my birthday must be in their database, since they send me a certificate every February for 20% off.
Business was surprisingly slow for a Friday night. It must be the economy, since neither the food nor the service can explain it. Maybe that’s no surprise after all: apparently the high-end restaurants are all hurting, even if the cheaper ones are still doing all right.
Catching up on a blog written by fellow Dorchester resident Candelaria Silva, I came across a post from a year and a half ago, “All White People, All the Time,” which caught my eye for several reasons:
- first of all, because she mentioned Weston High School, where she used to work and where I work now;
- second, because she talked about the issue of being the only person of color in the room — a concern that I have had many times (even though I’m in the majority in those settings, not the minority);
- third, because of her discussion of knowing “how to play suburban patty cake.”
Weston High School is no longer quite as white as it was when Silva worked there, but it’s still pretty white: 78.1% white according to the official statistics. People of color can thrive there, whether they’re students or adults, but they still need to play the game, the game that the principal of that time called “suburban patty cake.”
A couple of other ideas spin off from this observation:
- Some (many? most?) white people think that they can replicate the feeling of being the only person of color in the room by placing themselves in the reverse situation. For example, it can easily happen that a small gathering of a dozen or so people at the Crimson Summer Academy might contain only one white person — perhaps a student, perhaps a teacher. There are, of course, places in Boston as well where this can happen, but all too often this description rings true:
How many times have I been at a meeting, served on a committee, or attended an event in Boston to find that I am with myself and by myself with no other brown or beige brethren to be seen, often not even among the service staff?
Despite the increased numbers of people of color in the Boston census (Boston is now a majority “minority” city), it often feels like this town is all white people, all the time.
For this reason, and because of the greatly unequal roles assigned to the races in our culture, we simply can’t replicate the feeling of a person of color just because there may be the rare occasion where someone is the only white person in the room.
- As so often happens in this country, the issue is not only race but also class. I felt quite uncomfortable in my first year at Weston, although that discomfort didn’t last, and now I love it there. There’s a glaring distinction, of course, between race and class: class is usually not immediately obvious when someone walks into a room.
I wonder whether Weston High School feels like a different place now for people of color, simply because we now have a black principal. Or maybe that doesn’t make a difference.
And does it matter that we also have a black governor and a black president? It’s dramatically not “all white people, all the time” anymore. Or maybe that doesn’t make a difference either, since Silva’s initial observation about meetings, committees, and events still rings true.
No, not two dogs. No, not two students whose last name is Chow. I’m referring to two Chinese restaurants: Chau Chow in Dorchester (discussed previously in this blog on 7/23/2008, 9/1/2006, and 5/9/2006) and Great Chow in the Wollaston section of Quincy (discussed only once in this blog, on 2/4/2006). Anyway, I just wanted to report that Barbara and I had a first-rate dinner at Great Chow the other night; we ordered far too much food, as all six of the special entrees were irresistible. Well, we had to resist, so we limited ourselves to three — which of course was still too much food. So we had leftovers to take home; nothing wrong with that. I highly recommend all three of the specials that we tried: lightly fried shrimp with garlic green beans, lobster with ginger and scallions, and roast duck with green beans.
Go to Chau Chow for dim sum, but Great Chow is definitely the better choice for dinner.
The time is 8:30 this morning. The scene is the front of Greenleaf Hall at Milton Academy, as the day begins at The Saturday Course. A mom drops off her fourth-grader. We listen in on their remarks:
Mom: Have a good day at school!
Daughter: This isn’t school.
Mom: What is it then?
Daughter: It’s an opportunity.
That was the actual conversation. No, we didn’t make it up. No, we didn’t script it.
At the end of the day, I looked at the parent evaluations of the program. One mom from Dorchester (not the same as the one quoted above) wrote, “Before the program began, I didn’t think it would be possible to learn much in six weeks. I was wrong. They learned a lot!” Yes, indeed. And you have to understand that “six weeks” really means a grand total of six 75-minute classes! How much can kids learn in under eight hours? Quite a lot, it seems — when they’re motivated and can participate in exciting courses taught in small groups by teachers who are passionate about what they’re teaching.
It’s a cliché to say so, but this was certainly a day that I’ll remember for the rest of my life! Unlike most such days (the JFK assassination, 9/11, etc.) it was historic as a joyous occasion, not a tragedy. Although I couldn’t see the inauguration as part of the millions who were there in person in Washington, I was just so glad that I could still be part of a reasonably large number of people watching on a huge screen in an auditorium: it almost gave me a sense of actually being there, a sense that I wouldn’t have had if I had been part of an audience of six watching on television. It definitely became an experience, not a passive observation. So much is being written about the inauguration today that I don’t think I’ll add any more, except to say that I kept thinking of the last two lines of one of Pete Seeger’s songs, “Talking Union”:
And if you don’t let race hatred break you up,
You’ll win. What I mean, take it easy, but take it!
How appropriate for President Obama. And here we had Pete Seeger with Bruce Springsteen at the pre-inaugural concert, moving us with “This Land is Your Land,” including the two verses that are usually omitted. And the line “take it easy, but take it” was famous as the way the late Studs Terkel always closed his radio show. But Terkel sadly didn’t quite live long enough to see Obama become president. However, the musical Working, based on Terkel’s book of that name, is going to be our spring musical at Weston. Everything is deeply intertwingled, as Ted Nelson says.
The inauguration was surrounded by our Weston Professional Development Day before and afterwards (thank you to the administration for letting us watch it, and more about what we learned in my next post), and we capped it off with dinner at JP Seafood. Of course I had to have the Obama maki: vinegared rice with raw tuna, pineapple, cream cheese, and scallions, all wrapped in seaweed. Quite good, but a bit strange. My theory is that the pineapple represents Hawaii, and the cream cheese represents “No Drama” Obama, and the tuna represents Obama’s serious substance, and the scallions represent… oh well, maybe I’m going out on a limb here. But the whole thing definitely represented change. The five-year-old girl had the next table was eating sushi with salmon roe, but then again this was JP.
A completely unsolicited testimonial:
Barbara and I noticed that our 28-year-old gas furnace was behaving erratically, sometimes turning off and on in rapid intervals, and sometimes turning off altogether. We called Micci Fuel Co. to come look at it and fix whatever was wrong. They showed up on time, cleaned and vacuumed the furnace, and explained to us just what they were doing and why. If you’re in their neighborhood, we certainly recommend them!
The furnace works perfectly now.
By the way, conventional wisdom has it that young people aren’t going into businesses like this anymore, so we were pleased to see that one of the guys who showed up was in his twenties.
We tend to think of Dorchester as “inner city” — which indeed it is…or not, depending on one’s definition (see below). But most of us don’t think of urban gardens in connection with Dorchester. A useful antidote is Dorchester Community Gardens. Our local community garden is on Msgr. Lydon Way. Here are a few photos, which might surprise those whose image of Dorchester is formed solely by crime reports in The Globe:
Now, as for the definition of “inner city”: Wikipedia says that it’s “the central area of a major city or metropolis,” going on to explain as follows:
the term is often applied to the poorer parts of the city centre and is sometimes used as a euphemism with the connotation of being an area, perhaps a ghetto or slum, where residents are less educated and more impoverished and where there is more crime.
Answers.com defines it like this:
The usually older, central part of a city, especially when characterized by crowded neighborhoods in which low-income, often minority groups predominate.
Whichever definition you prefer, Dorchester is certainly in part inner-city. I do tell people that I live in the inner city, but we also have community gardens and other green space.
I’ve written a couple of previous posts about the Ashmont Grill — two years ago and five months ago. Since the latter post, Barbara and I have visited several times, mostly for the Monday Night wine club, which I highly recommend (though not, of course, for my under-21 readers). Each evening features a four-course dinner (admittedly of four small plates), with wines paired with each course, for an amazing $30 per person. The food is almost uniformly excellent, though occasionally the restaurant takes this opportunity to try out new dishes which of course aren’t necessarily successful. (Presumably the reason that they can achieve the $30 price point is that the wines are donated by a winery or retail outlet each time.) Here are four recent examples to whet your appetite:
From September 8
From October 27
From November 3
From December 22
I’m looking forward to Tuscany! (Who wouldn’t?)
A related event was a wine tasting benefit on August 4 at the Ashmont Grill for the St. Marks Area Civic Association, featuring wines from Albert Winestein, a retail wine-and-cheese store in Hyde Park.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Wine Club is not the wine nor even the food, but the fact that guests are arranged family style at tables that seat four to eight. As a couple, Barbara and I are always seated with strangers, something that would usually have a high probability of making me uncomfortable. I’m not particularly extraverted, and I tend not to be very sociable with people I don’t know yet. But the fact is that we’ve met lots of interesting people with a surprising number of things in common with us — not just providing the obvious conversation topics such as food, wine, and Dorchester. We’ve met a manager at a local independent bookstore (one of the few that remain), a physics professor, an architect from a neighboring town, and a woman who knew one of the very few Weston families to be distinctly countercultural.
So, if you live anywhere near Dorchester, try it out! Reservations are advised; you can call the restaurant (617-825-4300) to make inquiries and to be put on their email list. They usually don’t know the menus until a few days in advance, so don’t expect a lot of notice.
As locals know, the current incarnation of the Ashmont Grill is the creation of Chris Douglass, a neighborhood resident who is best known for his South End restaurant, Icarus. Barbara and I usually go to Icarus only once a year (for our anniversary), since it’s extremely expensive. The Ashmont Grill is still a bit overpriced, and not in the same league as Icarus in terms of cuisine and service, but at least it’s the sort of place that one could go to once a month, even without the exceptional value of the Wine Club. Read my July 19 review for more of my point of view, or check out the many reviews on Yelp for a variety of opinions, some reasonable and some wrong-headed. (I’m reminded of Tom Lehrer’s remark that the trouble with folk music is that it’s written by the people, and my friend Brian’s observation that you have to be wary of the general public’s opinions of restaurants, since McDonald’s is the most popular restaurant in the world.)
Before we leave the subject of the Ashmont Grill, I need to write a bit about Tavolo, Chris Douglass’s latest restaurant, catty-corner from the Ashmont Grill and right at the Ashmont Station on the Red Line. The theory was that this would be a third price point, with Icarus at the very high end, Ashmont Grill in the Middle, and Tavolo at the low end. As a pizza-and-pasta joint, Tavolo should be informal and inexpensive, while still serving high-quality food. Barbara and I have been there a couple of times, and we’re not impressed, though we really, really want to like it. The food is perfectly OK (nothing to write home about, but then again that’s not what you would expect), though there were a few flaws. For instance, while Barbara’s salad came with the dressing on the side, as she had requested, it was so heavily pre-salted that she couldn’t eat it. (Why pre-salt a salad at all?) And the carbonara was a bit too eggy, at least for our taste. We really liked the mushroom pizza. Service was fine, including cheerfully willing replacement of the salted salad. But our big problem was the wine prices. For a purportedly inexpensive restaurant with a $40 ceiling on wine, why does the lowest-price red go for $32? (My friends who are beer drinkers don’t have similar complaints.) For instance, a nice Sicilian Nero d’Avola that can be purchased retail for ten dollars is priced at $36 at Tavolo! I know that there are lots of reason for significant mark-ups, but if the otherwise pricey Birch Street Bistro in Roslindale can charge $24 for similar wines, why can’t Tavolo?
The Savin Hill neighborhood in Dorchester is conventionally divided into two parts, at least by real estate agents. The “better” half, according to some, is “Savin Hill over the Bridge,” namely the portion to the east of the bridge that crosses the Southeast Expressway. Dorchester is changing so rapidly that this decades-only terminology may now be out of date; read what people have to say on Yelp if you want some local opinions on the subject.
Anyway, immediately to the west of the bridge — practically on the bridge itself, but not quite “over the bridge” — is C.F. Donovan’s Restaurant, one of our favorites in Dorchester. Simple, unpretentious, not trying to be upscale or too gourmet, Donovan’s is where Barbara and I go when we’re driving home and it’s too late to start cooking dinner. Always reliable, Donovan’s has a large menu, prices are good, the food is always of high quality, the service is friendly and accurate, the portions are large, and the wine list is both decent and reasonably priced. What more could one ask for?
Try the Savin Hill scallops (“Jumbo Sea Scallops sautéed with sage butter, served over baby spinach and garlic mashed potatoes”), the French onion soup, the prime rib, the onion rings, the chicken bella boca, the grilled asparagus, and the burgers. In our experience, you can’t go wrong.
Following up on yesterday’s footnote, I need to mention another linguistic annoyance: the misuse of the word “Spanish.” Yes, it correctly describes the language that is spoken not only in Spain but also in much of Central and South America, but it’s not the right word for the culture, the food, or the people — unless, of course, you’re talking about Spain itself. For the Western Hemisphere we have the perfectly good words “Hispanic” and “Latino.” Anyway, my local neighborhood convenience store changed owners recently, and now it advertises “Spanish & American Foods,” as you can see in this picture. (I couldn’t find an angle that would avoid the intrusive stop sign, but you can still read it pretty well.)
Needless to say, I found lot of Latin American items inside the store but very little food from Spain. They do, however, primarily carry the Goya Foods brand, and it’s of interest that Goya was indeed founded by a couple from Spain. Goya, however, clearly uses the words “Spanish,” “Hispanic,” and “Latino” correctly on their website.
Two years ago I promised a review of the dim sum at the then-new branch of Chau Chow in Dorchester, but I don’t think I ever wrote one. So here, at long last, is that review.
Barbara and I ate dim sum there this morning (for what must be at least the sixth time — so you can see that we like it). Chau Chow serves traditional dim sum, where the servers roll carts around the restaurant and you order small quantities (Chinese tapas?) by pointing, not from a menu. There are, of course, both advantages and disadvantages to this system: aside from being authentic and just generally cool, the rolling-cart method has the advantage that you can see what you’re getting; it has the disadvantages that the food can sometimes come in very rapid succession, and you don’t always know what you’re getting, especially when the server speaks little English or very heavily accented English. At Chau Chow there are several servers in this category, but they’re all friendly and willing to try. The food is quite delicious, at least to these moderately educated Western palates. I don’t know what customers at the extremes would think — either the extreme of wanting totally Americanized food or the extreme of wanting nothing familiar. Perhaps both of those groups would be disappointed.
There are several dishes about which Barbara and I can agree: we’re both very fond of them. This morning we had scrumptious pork-and-shrimp shumai, unctuous eggplant that’s probably bad for us, yummy ground pork dumplings, the always delicious fried taro cakes (with a bit of shrimp in them), two different kinds of lovely shrimp-and-scallion dumplings, some not-to-be-missed lobster dumplings (yum!) — all of those were items we both loved. Do you begin to detect any themes there? In addition, we had scallion dumplings (which Barbara liked more than I did, since I’m put off by the flavor that steaming imparts to scallions) and stuffed mushrooms (which I love, but which have a texture that doesn’t appeal to Barbara). Needless to say, this was too much food, so we took quite a bit home to reheat for breakfast and/or lunch tomorrow. The entire bill came to $42.00 including tax and tip, which sounds like a lot for breakfast or brunch but was actually quite reasonable when you consider all the leftovers it provided.
So go to Chau Chow, especially if you have a group of more than two people, so you can sample more choices. Maybe you’ll try the chicken feet.
Instead of being out in the thunderstorm this afternoon, I attended a beautiful concert performance by my fellow Dorchesterite and former student, coloratura soprano Zakiyyah Sutton. (Yes, I had to look it up too. I used to know what coloratura meant, but I had forgotten.) The concert was held at the mostly white Old South Church in Copley Square, but was actually sponsored by the Concert Committee for Young People’s Artistry and Education of their sister UCC Church, the predominantly black Eliot Congregational Church in Roxbury. As you’ll see, this racial distinction turned out to be relevant.
 Zakiyyah, who just graduated from the Boston Arts Academy, was a student of mine for two summers at Crimson Summer Academy and will be attending Wellesley College in the fall. She sang an amazing 14 numbers in this concert: ten as solos and four as duets with fellow performer Jamal Hoskins, a tenor, who performed five solos (and, of course, four duets). The Eliot Studio Singers accompanied a few of the songs as well.
By far the best performance was Zakiyyah’s rendition of the aria “Der Hölle Rache” from Mozart’s Magic Flute. This was actually her second song in German, since she had opened the concert with “Bist Du Bei Mir,” attributed to J.S. Bach in the program but apparently actually written by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, or so they say. Zakiyyah’s other two pre-intermission solos were Scarlatti songs, both beautifully sung in Italian; she was so convincing in both languages that it was only afterwards that I found out that she actually doesn’t speak either of them.
The second half of the concert was less familiar to me, including a song from Aladdin, one by Stevie Wonder, and several gospel numbers, only two of which I knew. Culturally speaking, I found the performance eye-opening in several ways, starting with the fact that I was in a small minority in the audience (there were probably only six or seven whites there) and I have very little familiarity with the traditions of the black church, both for racial and religious reasons. Sure, I know about them second-hand from books, plays, and movies, but it’s something quite different to be immersed in the black church in person. The differences became vividly evident when Zakiyyah movingly dedicated a song (“His eye is on the sparrow”) to her ailing father and then broke down when she started to sing it. The audience was just so supportive of her, and in a way that no white audience could have been. I don’t meant to suggest that a white audience wouldn’t have been equally supportive, because of course they would have tried to be — they just wouldn’t have been able to show it very well. The interaction between performer and audience was just so meaningful and effective in this context.
About ten minutes later, Zakiyyah got back up and said that she had recovered and wanted to sing the song the way it should be done. Actually, I thought she had sung it perfectly well the first time — she did manage to get through it successfully with the aid of the audience — but I have to admit that the second rendition was truly beautiful, and I’m glad she decided to do it.
In general, the solos were much more effective than the duets, perhaps because Zakiyyah was definitely the stronger performer. But their closing number, a duet version of “Amazing Grace,” was moving and perfect.
I’ll close with a couple of non-musical notes: the opening remarks by Old South Church Associate Minister Quinn Caldwell included an African proverb that definitely resonated with me: “If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.” This speaks to me in part because of what it says about teaching. (More about that in a later post.) Also, I was struck by the explicit recognition of two judges in the audience: Judge Leslie E. Harris and Judge Milton L. Wright, Jr.; the latter turns out to be “a gifted singer and writer of a musical production as well as a lawyer.” The musical director from the Eliot Church pointed out that performances like this one show “Roxbury on the good side,” in contrast to what they usually see in court. While Zakiyyah is from Dorchester, the point is still completely valid and contrasts with what we usually hear on the news. Crime is news; music isn’t.
It was too hot to cook today, so Barbara and I went to the Ashmont Grill, along with our friend Cheri. This was our third dinner visit there in the past six months or so (in addition to a couple of brunches). I didn’t post anything about the previous two dinners, since I was waiting for a tie-breaker, and now we have one.
First of all, what happened two visits ago? We had been disappointed at that time, because earlier experiences at the Ashmont Grill had all been wonderful; but that time everything was mediocre. Vegetables were somewhat overcooked, meat was a bit dry and not hot enough, and service was haphazard. Next time would be better, we hoped. And indeed it was. So which was the real Ashmont Grill? I am pleased to report that the one disappointing experience was an anomaly, and all seems to be well. The three of us sampled a variety of items on the menu, and there wasn’t a false step among them: crisp, light calamari, whisked to us from the fryer without spending time under a heat lamp; plump, fresh, garlicky mussels in a red pepper sauce; a top-quality hamburger cooked exactly to order; fall-off-the-bone short ribs in not too much sauce; excellent home-made cole slaw; hot, thick, sinfully rich home-made onion rings; hot, fresh, cornbread; and a nice bottle of Côtes du Rousillon.
The prices, of course, are significantly lower than those at Chris Douglass’s other restaurant, his flagship Icarus, which is one of the very best restaurants in Boston. But it still seems a bit expensive for an informal, low-key, neighborhood-type place. Oh, it’s still definitely worth it, but don’t expect cheap. The food and service are great; now if only the prices were a little lower…
Just getting around to blogging this, but there was a fascinating article a few weeks ago in the Boston Globe, made all the more relevant to me because it mentioned several of my Weston students and was written by the mother of one of those students. Ellen Freeman Roth’s article, headlined “Not your father’s nicknames when teens talk to parents,” explored what kids call their parents and their parents’ friends:
Lisa and Michael Josephson of Old Greenwich, Conn., are Mama Jo and Papa Jo, names coined by their daughter’s friend. Timothy Sweet of Watertown began calling his father “Sweet Man” a dozen years ago on a Boy Scout trip. Sweet likewise has nicknames for his friends’ parents, including “Glenzo” for Glen and “Pina” for Patricia.
Sarah Switlik, 18, a Babson College student from Princeton, N.J., said her mother, Pam, wasn’t thrilled at first when Sarah called her P-Money. “Initially my mom said, ‘Really, Sarah,’ exasperatedly. Now when she’s texting she signs off, ‘Love, P$.’ It makes her feel like one of the girls.”
…
Caroline Gaulin, 22, of Greenwich, Conn., yelled “My bad, G-Dog!” to her father, Dan, during a basketball game to make light of an error she’d made. “After that we started calling him G-Dog,” she said. “Now he loves it.”
Teachers are almost always called by title and surname at Weston, but at CSA we’re all on a first-name basis. These customs run counter to expectations and fly in the face of the customs for naming of parents and parents’ friends, at least based on my predictions. There are probably some interesting class issues here. Although I grew up calling my parents “Mom” and “Dad,” I called all my other relatives and my parents’s friends by their first names: it was Lillian and Leonard, not Aunt Lillian and Uncle Leonard; Luke and Gen, not Mr. and Mrs. Garner. But Barbara grew up more formally, with Aunts and Uncles and surnames with titles. I’ll have to ask my CSA students what they do; I’ll predict big differences between Weston and Dorchester.
As I mentioned in my post of four days ago, my sophomores at Crimson Summer Academy (CSA) are currently studying models of voting. While I’m trying to move them away from cuteness as a criterion and toward serious consideration of candidates, my mission is more mathematical than political. So I want my students to learn about the mathematical methods involved in various answers to our Big Question for the summer: “What if nobody gets a majority?” We’re a democracy (more or less), which means that the majority should rule (more or less) except where minority rights are involved. So we study all sorts of real-life voting methods that soon-to-be voters will have to confront:
- simple plurality, as in elections for Massachusetts governor
- two-round runoff, used in much of the South and elsewhere
- preliminary-and-final (very close to two-round runoff), used in elections for Mayor and City Council in Boston
- Plan E Proportional Representation, used in elections for City Council in Cambridge
- the Electoral College, used in elections for president of the United States
The problem is that even with the current heightened interest in Obama, teens still aren’t going to pay much attention to candidates for offices other than president. They don’t care about Cambridge and Boston city councillors. So, how do we grab their attention? What’s something in which they have a lot of interest and about which they have a lot of knowledge? Several years, ago one of my teaching assistants (“mentors” in CSA jargon), himself a Harvard undergraduate, made an excellent suggestion, which we’ve followed ever since: hold an election for three Supreme Musical Artists of the Past Fifty Years.
So that’s what we do. We collect nominations on the first day. Then, at various points throughout the course, we hold elections using the different methods listed above, always starting with the same nominees. Maybe the results will differ, depending on the method. Needless to say, the results among 15-year-olds bear no relation to the candidates for whom I would have voted. In fact, about a third of the nominees were individuals or groups that I hadn’t even heard of. Anyway, with no further ado, here were the winners from the two-round-runoff method, each listed with the number of votes in the second round (stay tune for the results of other methods later in the summer):
| 37 |
Tupac Shakur |
| 32 |
Lil Wayne |
| 31 |
Chris Brown |
And the runners-up in the second round were…
| 23 |
Michael Jackson |
| 15 |
The Beatles |
| 15 |
Jonas Bros. |
|
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