Posts Tagged “cambridge”

I needed a drink Friday night, and despite the best efforts of the MBTA, I made my way to Casablanca restaurant in Harvard Square for small plates and wine. I spied a familiar name on the list and ordered up a 2006 Napa Fume Blanc from Grgich Hills. It hit the spot, crisp and dry, pineapply and cold, and took me back on a peculiar journey of oenophilic synchronicity.

Back In 2004, I took a summer vacation to Italy and Croatia. Two weeks of incredible eating and drinking. Towards the end of the trip, I was in Split, from where I took a ferry trip to several Dalmatian islands, including Vis, which was billed as, “vineyard island Vis.” How cool an idea is that? On Vis, I tasted several local wines with names I could neither pronounce or remember, which is a shame. Back in Split, I popped into a wine shop to find something to bring back. The shopkeeper pointed me towards a bottle of Grgić Pošip 2002 with the instruction that it was good with fish. It was from Korčula, an island I did not visit, but it was dry and delicious. With fish.

Flash forward a couple of years, and I’m in San Francisco on business. Which of course means I’m dragging my hapless but not unwilling colleague to Napa for an afternoon. We visited a handful of wineries, large and small, and then happened upon Grgich Hills. Could it be the same as Grgić? How could it be, but on the other hand, how could it not? (I didn’t notice it then, but the red and white checkered shield of Croatia is on the Grgich HIlls label) They didn’t have any Pošip, but my colleague brought back some of their famous Chardonnay. It turns out that the two winemakers are connected, but not in the way I would have guessed.

The Grgic(h) story starts in Croatia (Yugoslavia, actually), with Miljenko Grgich born into a winemaking family and fleeing communism in the ’50s for West Germany, Canada and then California. Later known as Mike, Grgich worked with several illustrious California winemakers and eventually partnered with Austin Hills to form Grgich Hills Cellar in 1977. It’s not a place, it’s two names. The story returns to Croatia only in 1996 when Mike goes back to set up Grgić Vina to combine local Croatian grapes (which Mike has proven are the ancestors of modern California Zinfandel) and high-tech techniques learned in Napa. You can read the full story at the Grgich Hills Estate web site, it’s quite a capsule history of California Chardonnay.

I still don’t know much about the spelling disparity or where to get more Grgić Pošip, but I’m happy to be reconnected with the Grgich family, and will definitely be stocking more Grgich Fume Blanc if I can get my hands on it.

Walking home after dark, I meandered through Porter square along White street, and there it was, a store I hadn’t noticed before. It was closed, with no visible signage, but brightly lit within. Some kind of furniture store with lots of shelving, closet organizers…

…and if I’m not mistaken, a Murphy Bed! A what, you ask? Wikipedia explains it all:

A Murphy Bed or Wallbed is a bed that flips up at the head end for storage inside a closet. … William L. Murphy applied for a patent for the Murphy bed on April 1, 1916 and was granted Design Patent D49,273 on June 27, 1916. Murphy started the Murphy Wall Bed Company and began production in San Francisco. In January 1990, the company changed its name to the “Murphy Bed Co. Inc.”

As you may know, I have a pretty small apartment, so this sort of gizmo appeals to me. And ya gotta love a patented bed. Especially one with built-in comedy value. Again, from Wikipedia. And I’m pretty sure there’s a good Murphy bed accident in one of the Pink Panther movies, too.

These beds make appearances in movies as they lend themselves to slapstick humor in which people are trapped when the bed folds into the upright position, carrying the person on the bed inside. For example, in Stanley Kramer’s famous comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the smarmy Otto Meyer (Phil Silvers) gets thrown from the fire truck ladder, through a window and onto a Murphy bed, which prompty retracts into the wall. In Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie, a hotel’s neon sign advertises “Murphy Beds — Charming to the Unsophisticated”. Modern murphy beds utilize a counterbalance system making it near impossible to get trapped.

I was kinda looking forward to getting trapped in there. It’s a killer excuse for being late to work. But the Murphy bed story gets better, there’s trademark abandonment, the downside of too successful a brand name:

In 1989, an appellate court held that the term “Murphy bed” is no longer entitled to trademark cover because a substantial majority of the public perceive the term as a generic term for a bed that folds into a wall rather than the specific model made by the Murphy Bed Co.

So what is this store called and what’s the deal with the Murphy bed in the window? Well, I searched around and found not one but three websites for this shop. I’ll share one called Closet Solutions, which now that I type it, is actually visible in the photo above. Duh. Will have to check this place out sometime when they’re open.

As I contemplate driving 500 miles or so this weekend - more than I’ve driven in a month so far this year, I believe - my mind meanders back to cartographic matters. A random roundup of mappy clippings:

I. The Globe Corner Bookstore has a Blog.
I’ve been an unrepentant fan of GCB for as long as I’ve known about it. One of my first luxury purchases after a period of difficult cashflow was a globe from Globe Corner. When they closed I mourned, when they reopened, I rejoiced. The Globe Corner Blog delivers book reviews, travel tips, and news on a near-daily basis. It’s not as marvelous and awesome as Strange Maps, but it’s pretty cool.

IIa. WBUR’s Charles River flickr Group
I picked up this item via the ever-alert crew at Universalhub: WBUR’s Boston Radio is doing a show on the Charles River, and set up a flickr group for people to post their river pics and geocode them. That’s my kind of thing, so I dusted off some Charles-y pics from last month and uploaded and tagged them. Listen to the podcast and check out the photo map.

I continue to wonder if there’s a way to handle geotagging for pictures that are of a line rather than a point in space.  For example, my Acela collages.  I wonder if I can rig up a useful way to take similar photos as I drive this weekend without being too much of a traffic hazard.

IIb. On Point Radio: How the States Got Their Shapes
For a double dose of WBUR, I was listening in the background as I often do, and suddenly I was hearing a caller ask about an event in the early ’90s when Connecticut Governor John Rowland made an April fools day joke of annexing the small bit of Massachusetts that pokes down into Connecticut so that Mass might then be free to slide into the sea. I was in college in Connecticut at the time and thought that was pretty funny. On Point was doing an entire show on the origins of the peculiarities of the borders of the states. Good stuff. Here’s a pic from wikipedia showing the Southwick Jog aka Granby Notch.

IV. Liminal Spaces Between Cambridge and Somerville
This weekend I was hanging out with LKB and BEM at their Cambridge lair swilling excellent margaritas, and they asked me if I had ever resolved my Somerville parking ticket. I had in fact, not yet heard from the parking authorities of Somerville, but that didn’t stop us from speculating about various kinds of installation art that might be done if we could locate a strip of land claimed by neither Cambridge nor Somerville. I’ll summarize the discussion with “Smallest. Casino. Ever.”

I learned a couple of weeks ago that Magnolia’s Southern Cuisine, one of my favorite Cambridge restaurants, is closing on June 14. So I invited a bunch of friends for one last visit. It was a great mix of old friends and new, classmates and colleagues. I think business cards were exchanged, perhaps deals will be made. But let’s talk about the food consumed, I know that’s why you’re reading.

Magnolia’s has a regular menu and a seasonal and thematic festival menu. The last festival menu reads a bit like something Forrest Gump might have put together, but with both crabs and shrimp: Grilled Shrimp Skewered with Figs, Lump Crabmeat, Maryland Jonah Crab Claws, Blue Crab Fingers, Shrimp Remoulade, New Orleans BBQ Shrimp, Blackened Rainbow Trout with Lump Crabmeat and Shrimp, Fried Soft Shell Crab, Maryland Crab Cakes and Crab Imperial. I’m not entirely sure what everybody at our table of 8 had, and it was a bit dark for photos, so here’s the rundown as best as I can recall. Perhaps other diners will comment on their meals.

My end of the table shared fried green tomatoes, hoppin’ shavonne, and a crispy fried avocado for starters. Fried green tomatoes, one of my favorite things at Magnolia’s, are almost like french toast made with firm, even crunchy, green tomatoes. They’re coated with breadcrumbs but not too thickly.

Hoppin’ Shavonne is a variant of Hoppin’ John (also available at Magnolia’s), a dish steeped Afro-Caribbean and Carolina culture. Where John is a rice and beans dish usually with some pork of sausage, Magnolia’s Shavonne substitutes Logan Turnpike Stone Ground Cheese Grits for the rice underlying the beans and tomatoes. I’m pretty sure there’s noplace else around here where you can get this.

I’d never had a fried avocado, but I’m already thinking about how I can get another one. The avocado arrives at the table whole, breaded and fried, looking not so different from a slightly lighter brown raw avocado. But when you cut into it, you find that the pit has been transformed as if by magic into a gooey puddle of cheddar cheese. Brilliant.

For mains, we had a crab combo plate, and from the regular menu, the “glorified BBQ chicken dinner,” a couple of chef’s choice vegetarian plates, fiery jambalaya, catfish and duck.

I was only able to glimpse the crab combo before it disappeared in a flurry of scooping, shell sucking, crunching, and mopping, so I’ll assume it was good.

I was torn between ordering the duck and the catfish, so when I heard a neighbor order the duck, I went for the catfish and traded tastes. The duck was slow-roasted and slathered with a super-sweet but not very spicy orange chipotle sauce. Maybe a bit too sweet, but the raisin pecan rice and collard greens were spot on and the duck itself was tender and delicious.

The catfish came crusted with pecans and flanked by cheese grits and collard greens. Crunchy and creamy, each in the right place and proportion, and the collard greens were simply done with salt and pepper and vinegar. Perfect with the half of last remaining cornbread muffin.

Desserts were tempting - key lime pie and pecan pie beckoned seductively, but the group decided that it was best to remember Magnolia’s for their entrees, and to walk down the block to Christina’s Ice Cream for dessert, which was very satisfying.

And so we bid farewell to Magnolia’s just how I like to remember it, loud and crowded with good times. You’ve got almost a week left, so head on over and have a Shandy Carib for me.

Ever since I topped off the scrabble set at Bloc 11 Cafe in Union square, I’ve been on the lookout for other public scrabble sets in need of repair. After all, what am I going to do with 96 extra letters? Earlier this week, I checked 1369 coffeehouse in Inman square, also looking for a good savory scone. Not only did they not have any useful scones, but their scrabble set was completely gone. The only way you’d know it had ever been there was by the lonely OSPD sitting on the game shelf. I’m not sure if complete scrabble set replacement is in my mandate.

Yesterday, I was helping L buy dirt at Economy hardware, (she bought it on her own, I helped carry it) and we dropped in at Caffe La Luna for some gelato. I hadn’t been back to La Luna Caffe since that time I decided to try the “Puffo” gelato. I should know by now that “blue” is not a flavor. In any case, I spied a scrabble set and resolved to come back and check it.

Today, I’m sitting here watching a jazz combo setting up and smelling some really good smells from the kitchen. I checked the set, and sure enough, it was 33% short on the letter G. Fixed that.

While I’m here, let me say that this is a wonderful cafe for many reasons, and there’s no sign of any more gelato puffo. There’s a big window open to the street where a new public space is almost finished, there’s live music, good coffee, real gelato, sandwiches and salads too. Free wifi and a decent number of electrical outlets. It’s got a wonderfully laid-back feeling, not the cramped and overcaffeinated vibe you often get at independent coffee places.

So now you know. The scrabble set is complete and the cafe is a cool place, so come on down.