So I’m waiting in line at the deli section of the Stop & Shop at 545 Freeport St. in Dorchester, and the customer in front of me asks the clerk a question: Customer: Where are we? Clerk [in a surprised… Read More ›
Food & Restaurants
New Year's Eve at the Ashmont Grill and High Fidelity
To celebrate the New Year, Barbara and I just had dinner at the Ashmont Grill, which offered a special menu for New Year’s Eve. Although we hadn’t really intended this to be a “going out in public” experience — like… Read More ›
More dim sum at Chau Chow
In my post of May 9, I had promised to review the new branch of Chau Chow that recently opened in Dorchester. But then, alas, my blog went on hiatus, so you’ve seen no review from me. Here, at last,… Read More ›
More From Polymath
In yesterday’s post, I recommended an article in the Polymathematics blog. That entire blog is well worth reading. For example, consider a discussion of whether 0^0 should be 0 (because zero to any power is 1) or 1 (because anything… Read More ›
Chau Chow
Dorchester finally has a good Chinese restaurant! For years we’ve had to cross the border into Quincy to eat at the best Chinese restaurant around, the Great Chow (which, as I only discovered two years ago, is owned by the… Read More ›
The Rosengarten Report
I’ve been a subscriber to The Rosengarten Report for about a year now. I recommend it — with some reservations. According to David Rosengarten, this is a “fiercely independent, passionately written newsletter on the best foods and wines in the… Read More ›
Separated by a common language
First I was told that Churchill said it. Then I was told that it was Wilde. But actually it was Shaw who described England and America as “two countries separated by a common language.” Language is part of culture, so… Read More ›
London
We’re staying at 22 York Street, a lovely B&B just off Baker Street in London. Of course it’s foolish to try to make a dent in the to-do list when one has only a short stay in London, but we… Read More ›
The other Cambridge
Barbara and I spent the day with our host, Ardis, visiting the other Cambridge — you know, the one in England. Seeing 600-year-old buildings still in active use and walking in the footsteps of Isaac Newton never cease to astonish…. Read More ›
Toast
Just finished reading Nigel Slater’s memoir, Toast. Don’t bother.
Sel de la Terre
Just got back from Sel de la Terre. Highly recommended for a wonderful birthday dinner with that Provençal flavor.
North, East, South, and West
The day before yesterday, it was getting to be too late to cook dinner after I picked up Barbara in Watertown…and we would have had to defrost something anyway, or go grocery shopping on the way home…which would have made… Read More ›
dbar
Dorchester is actually getting some high-quality restaurants. A couple of years ago, the Blarney Stone in Fields Corner transformed itself from a typical Irish pub to an excellent restaurant. The new C.F. Donovan’s in Savin Hill serves inexpensive but reliably… Read More ›
Sunny Elmira
Here I am, enjoying my vacation in the tropical paradise of Elmira, New York. No, wait! I must be thinking of someplace else. Elmira isn’t a tropical paradise — it’s a cosmopolitan urban center with hundreds of exciting cultural opportunities… Read More ›
Vegan firefighters and Starbucks coffee
It’s a good thing to break stereotypes every now and again. Vegan firefighters? Sounds unlikely. Vegan Texans? Also sounds unlikely. Now we have a vegan firehouse in Texas! They started out as flexitarians, but became vegans over the course of… Read More ›
A half-Chinese Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving dinner was a bit unusual this year. As always, we went to my sister’s house in Somerville — nothing unusual about that. But why was so much of the conversation in Chinese? Let’s see… You first need to know… Read More ›
Infinite pizzas
An article in this week’s Somerville Journal gives free publicity to a pizza joint in Ball Square, the Urban Gourmet: …We offer about three dozen toppings with an infinite variety of combinations. .. Wow!
Learning Strategies 