Posts Tagged “02139”

OK, it might not be the most hotly-contested category, but it’s a tasty one.  I met up with intrepid gastronaut J to check out the Plough and Stars Sunday Night Chicken and Fish Fry and we were not disappointed.  And believe me, we’ve tried our share of fried chicken.

Arriving at the Plough towards the end of a set by Frank Drake and the Aristocrats (did I mention that the Plough might also offer the best country music of any Irish bar in Cambridge?), we settled in to a booth amid an atmosphere of pubby conviviality.   The chicken and fish menu was straightforward, with a handful of combos and sides.  We each had a three-piece dinner with cheddar grits, collard greens and cornbread. I washed mine down with a Magners.

The chicken was juicy and the crust crispy and well-seasoned.  Our worst fear – blandness – was totally unfounded.  The cornbread was sweet, the collards smoky, and the cheese grits, well, cheesy. Everything in its place.  Perhaps not the healthiest dinner of the week, but most food groups were present and all were satisfying.

As we left, the Frank Morey Band was just getting started.  The Plough crowd showed no sign of any care in the world, blissfully disinterested in the looming shadow of Monday morning. If Brigadoon were every Sunday night and came with southern cooking and country swing, I think it would be something like this.

Looking for a place to get away from it all yesterday morning, I trudged a few blocks in the rain to the Atomic Bean Cafe, which had opened in the shell of Mojo Records a few months ago.  I knew I could go a few more blocks to Dado Tea for a nice savory scone, but seeing Aranciata in the case reminded me the arancini at St. Anthony’s Feast and so I ordered a ham and cheese croissant and settled in for a spell.

Wifi at Atomic Bean is free, but you have to remember to borrow (and return!) one of the secret password cards near the register.

Atomic Bean is also a gallery of sorts, and they currently feature paintings by Sara Theophall and others.  Wall text and price lists were scant, but the work is well worth a look.  Theophall’s work reminded me a bit of that of Ariel Freiberg, seen at least year’s Somerville Open Studios, where I also first met Tova Speter, whose woodgrain-based work has also graced the walls of Atomic Bean.  Small art world indeed.

I’m a big proponent of the rights of authors to profit from the sale of their work, but I’m also a fan of the first-sale doctrine that lets me give away, lend or sell my copy of that work once I legally acquire it.  So, while I am mindful that when I buy a used book (or borrow one) I’m not contributing to author royalties, I support used bookstores for several reasons:

• they make more books available to more people who are price-sensitive
• they are the only way to get books that are out of print
• sometimes, you find something interesting in a used book that you would never find in a new one: an inscription or notes, or a bookmark or some other ephemera

That last one, by the way, is something that future generations of digital book buyers will probably never know they’re missing.  See my recent posts on Kindle-related stuff for more on ebooks and intellectual property.  But it’s also worth noting that Google books, by scanning books, sometimes preserves this old stuff.  Check out page 8 of Google’s scan of a 1905 edition of Wuthering Heights for a taste.

Anyway… I popped in to my local used book emporium, Rodney’s Bookstore, this week seeking a copy of Wuthering Heights for book club. (My desire to contribute to author royalties and publisher revenues diminishes with the deadness of the author.)  I found three paperback copies in totally different editions and varying conditions, priced from $1.90 to $4.80.

One was a standard-issue trade paperback, part of some classic series.  It was in very good condition and the most expensive of the lot.

Next up, a Kaplan SAT Score-Raising Classic edition, billed on the Harlequin Romance inspired cover as “The Classic Novel with 763 SAT Vocabulary Words Identified and Defined!” The definitions were on the facing page to the text, swelling this edition to over 600 pages.  The bold SAT words might be a little distracting, but this one was well-proportioned and a relative bargain at $3.80.

Finally, the highbrow edition.  A St. Martin’s Press press trade paperback with a heavy paper cover, boasting the 1847 text and essays from “five contemporary critical perspectives” namely, psychoanalytic, feminist, deconstruction, Marxist, and cultural criticism.  Wow.  The downside, marked in pencil on the flyleaf, “$1.90 AS IS ROUGH” It was beat up, but appeared complete and had no highlighting or underlining, which are generally deal-breakers for me when buying a book.

Each edition certainly had its merits, but until I got my purchase home, I didn’t know the extent.  Here’s something you probably won’t ever see in your Kindle.

PS I also bought the Kaplan edition, just for laughs, and just in case I need to look up a word.  What does “Wuthering” mean anyway?

I do like to graze.  It seems a shame to take a meandering walk home without first giving the local eateries along the way a look, or a bite.  So I took a seat at the bar at Garden at the Cellar, Will Gilson’s localvore joint in the dwindling furniture district between Harvard and Central.   I usually go right for the tomato herb soup with a grilled vermont cheddar sandwich, a double dose of superb comfort food for only $8, but tonight I was seduced by a special, lamb tongue confit with fava beans, lentils and fiddleheads:

It shouldn’t diminish this dish at all to say that it wasn’t as satisfying as the lengua served at Toro, but as good as the lamb tongue was, I have to say the bright green beans and fiddleheads upstaged it a bit.  There was a generous portion of tongue chunks, tender and tasty in a rustic thick cut, identifiably lamb-flavored and different from the usual beef tongue you get.

I’ve also enjoyed fiddleheads recently at Hungry Mother, where they appeared with asparagus and ramps in another super-seasonal springy special.

Jumping back to Gilson, I should mention that he guest chef’d at the Savant Project a couple of weeks ago and served up (among other deliciousness) pickled ramps with oysters.

So spring is here, and the specials are flying.  Get out there and graze some!