An American in Paris

During the summer, the Boston Harbor Hotel shows movies over the harbor on Friday nights; excitedly, I checked out the schedule, and found that An American in Paris was on the docket for July!  And having just seen the music from the ballet performed live by the Boston Pops, it seemed a great idea to attend.

I called ahead to see about making a reservation, but was assured that, while tables are first come, first serve, we'd absolutely get a table if we arrived at 6:30pm.  Um, not so accurate, quite frankly.  We arrived and were told a two hour wait...and put our names in and promptly sat down on the steps for those folks that don't want to pay for the $25/table minimum.  We were called for a table in the back 45 minutes later, but at that point, we had already sent one of our number for Chiptole-based provisions.  In the meantime, we other two held down the fort, fighting off interlopers who expected us to scrunch up as tiny as possible on uncomfortable steps while wearing skirts (both of us) and having a bad knee (me).  Sorry, but no.  I hate to be the rude Samaritan here, but I've been sitting here for two hours, and no, I will not sit for the duration of the movie that I waited for uncomfortably and in pain.  Sorry. 

But!  Burritos arrived, and we were fed, and happy, waiting for the movie to start.

Our view of the show, extra kissing included courtesy of the couple on the left.  And Gene Kelly, what a showman.

Currants and Gooseberries

As a young elementary school student in search of adventure, I turned to tales of mice and badgers, battles and feasts.  It was far easier than trying to understand other children, that's for sure.  One of the wonderful things about these books (it's the Redwall series, by Brian Jacques) -- it was the food.  Mouth-watering descriptions of dishes I'd never heard, elderflower wine, skilly and duff, marchpane, currant scones...I wanted nothing more than to try each and every one. 

Now as a 20-something exploring the world of food, currants came back into my life through three food blogs:

Cannelle et Vanille is written by a Basque ex-pat named Aran Goyoaga living in Florida.  She just recently posted an ode to currants, but they are a frequent fixture in her dishes.

Tarlette is written by Helene Dujardin, a French ex-pat living in Charleston, South Carolina.  She recently went gluten free, so if you're looking for a former French pastry chef who spends a lot of time thinking about how to make pastry gluten free, this is the place to find that sort of thing.  She also uses currents wherever you would normally see berries in a dessert. 

La Tourtine Gourmande is written by Béa Peltre, an ex-pat from France who lives in Boston!  (I'm pretty sure we should be friends).  She, too, is a currant fiend. 

So.  My conclusion?  Currants must be French, or in the very least, European.  Because to me, summer berries are strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.  There simply aren't any other options.  I asked the woman selling the glorious spread of berries for Bug Hill Farms about it, and apparently it was illegal for many years to plant currants because they were considered carriers of white pine blister rust, a mold that affects white pine trees.  The logging industry therefore petitioned to have currants and gooseberries declared illegal in the early 1900s, meaning that the plants here in the US are few and far between.

But!  The law is no longer in effect, so you can plant the disease-resistant American cultivars without a problem.  My next Penthouse garden challenge?  Perhaps!

Champagne currants

Green gooseberry

By this point in my photo shoot up in the penthouse, condensation had started to form.  Silly 90ºF weather...

Red gooseberry

At this point the auto-focus began to think that the condensation was the target, so I gave up and started eating instead.  

Black currants (cassis)

Red currants

 Dinner

Pastries and Sharbat at Sofra

Very reluctant to return my sharbat, that's for sure.  Sharbat is a thick fruit drink, chilled and served with ice.  Sofra's is made with apricots, and simply wonderful. 

Lemon-type bars made with passionfruit (amazing), sesame shortbread cookies rich with the taste of tahini, coconut macaroons, chocolate chunk cookies, thumbprints, nut bars, plus a blackberry cake and a chocolate tart.  There was a lemon tart as well, but let's be serious, it had already disappeared by this point.

Up to Maine!

We were off early in the morning towards the land of beaches and lobster.

But first!  The north end, for delicious pastries.

Our former star, now wearing Celtics colors.

It's $20/person each way to Biddeford-Saco, and it takes about two hours to get there.  Perfect day-tripping distance.

Train!

Sand, sun, and surf. 

Deserted beach chairs

Who is afraid of the sun?  This girl.

Glorious five claw lobster roll.

And the other kind of lobster roll, this kind filled with cream and sugar.

Driftwood collecting

Paddle of beers at Run of the Mill. 

Mother and daughter, eating their way through Boston!

Two things my mom doesn't often eat at home:  nuts (my brother is deathly allergic) and East Coast-style seafood (we live in Minnesota...lobster rolls just don't happen).

(tangent about the peanuts...we had to excise nuts completely from our house when he was about 2 and I was 11.  My dad went from eating pb and j every day to just bread with grape jelly, and the two older kids lost the peanut-butter-on-a-spoon-with-chocolate-chips snack.  And mom?  She lost her favorite snack of roasted peanuts.  Anyway, not a big deal...all things are completely tangential when peanut dust could send him to the ER.  But--my first week in college on the dining plan, and they had a big tub of peanut butter in the sandwich line.  I had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every lunch and dinner for a week.  I'm sure my new friends thought I was crazy.  Then I calmed down and started eating, you know, food besides peanut butter.)

Okay.  Back to eating our way through Boston.  I made a list of options sorted by neighborhood with links to their yelp page and reviews, and sent it off to mom for review.  Her first trip here, we had dinner at Legal Seafood, afternoon tea at L'Esaplier, and dinner at Brookline Family Restaurant.  So, she was definitely looking for new options, especially those a bit closer to home.  

Day One:  lunch at Cambridge Brewing Company

She had a flight of beers on the patio to go with our CBC burger (mm, onions cooked in ale!) and an egg salad sandwich.

We had dinner at S and I Thai in Allston - a little hole in the wall that seats about 10 people, and makes wonderful Thai.  If you want it spicy, be sure to ask for it spicy; they dull it down for the typical BU student's palette. 


Day 2 was the Fourth, and while my mom was dead set on introducing me to a Navy Officer here in town for Fleet Week, we decided to stay in and watch the show from the Penthouse.


Day 3:  We had a friend over for brunch and introduced her to grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; Skippy Superchunk Peanut Butter and white bread, with huckleberry jam.  So good.

We headed to Area Four for lunch and inhaled their garlic knots and pizza (as far as the former goes, I'm kind of addicted).

Dinner was chex mix and margaritas on the Penthouse patio.  Yes, we're adults.  And yes, it was delicious.

Day Four:  We picked up pastries in the North End before heading up to Maine; this is half of a sfogliatelle pastry from Modern Pastry.  I could eat one every morning for breakfast.  (also, if you're interested in seeing how one makes this sort of pastry, here's a video of Alex Guarnaschelli making her recipe). 

My mom has a thing about Dunkin Donuts iced tea. so we armed ourselves with giant iced teas for the trip.  It was definitely nice to get some caffeine on the early-morning train.  (more about Maine tomorrow!) 

Day Five:  We decided to walk to Cafe Luna for brunch, and had the mixed berry french toast and this wonderful country biscuit sausage egg jalapeño hollandaise concoction...so wonderful.

(yes, this photo unfortunately took mom and the owner behind her unawares; but it's too delicious-looking not to share!)

Marty's

In preparation for a co-hosting both a cocktail party and a wine-tasting, a visit to Marty's out in Newton was inevitable.

My shopping cart. 

My favorite wines at Marty's, golden and lovely!  (....aaaaaand $120 a bottle).

"That will be $758.22, please." 

So surplus!

driftwood

I had such a great time making my last set of driftwood necklaces, so on my second trip to Maine, of course I had to collect more:

So many possibilities!

Wisdom from my mother

All smiles up in the Penthouse.  Why yes, we do look alike.  

 

Me:  "Mom, what do you do if you've always been friends with a guy, but then he gets a girlfriend and never returns your calls?  I mean, it's really frustrating!  We get along so well, and we've never had anything be awkward between us...it feels really unfair to lose someone just because they've started dating.  Any recommendations of things I can do?"

Mom:  "No.  Just give up."

Me:  "Oh.  Okay.  I guess."

Jazz Age Party, elsewhere on the web!

One of my favorite things about the jazz age party is the costumes and the smiles---and they're forever memorialized in flickr and other corners of the web.  Some of my favorites:

from here

from here

from here

from here

from here

Bill Cunningham

The famous photographer Bill Cunningham was out at the jazz age party, shooting away in his signature style in his blue jacket...I was hoping to make the background of one of his photographs, but alas, my time in the NY Times Style Section will have to wait...   (though one of our picnic neighbors is in the collage!  She's the one in the turquoise hair). 

from flickr

Click here to see the full effect (yet still no zoom!  disappointing, NY Times, disappointing)