i read somewhere that july is national ice cream month. what better way to celebrate than with a trip to margie’s? not that one needs a reason to go to margie’s, mind you, but it helps.
i’ll be at margie’s on thursday, july 29, at 7:30 p.m. you should join me.
oh, and by margie’s, i mean the margie’s on montrose. 1813 w. montrose, to be exact.
rsvp in the comments, or via e-mail, or text, or on twitter. hope to see at least some of y’all there. 
i’d misplaced my list of recipes to blog about until a few minutes ago, and since this poor blog hadn’t been updated since late april (oops! our bad!), i figured this was a good a time as any to post them up. links provided where available and substitutions listed where i can actually remember them.
shrimp piccata: somewhere between meh and nom. i only used 1 pound of shrimp instead of the 1 1/4 lbs called for in the recipe, and skipped the capers b/c i don’t like them. i can’t remember if i used vegetable broth, chicken broth, or water.
garlicky baked shrimp: nom. used regular bread crumbs instead of panko b/c that’s what i had on hand.
chicken with sundried tomatoes: nom.
hash brown cakes: nom. will make again.
herb crusted chicken: somewhere b/t meh and nom. the rice was an impulse buy, and since i keep boneless skinless chicken breasts in the freezer, it was relatively simple to pull together.
pasta cubana: somewhere b/t fail and meh. not sure if i’d make this one again. skipped the zucchini b/c no one at urbantherapy likes zucchini.
crispy breaded shrimp with garlicky beans: nom, although the beans weren’t as delicious as i’d hoped.
pecan crusted trout: nom. used catfish instead of trout b/c that’s what i had in the freezer.
spaghetti with shrimp, feta and dill: meh. maybe i shouldn’t have skipped the dill.
easy beef stroganoff: nom. would make again.
This started when I was to give a professor a CD of some software he needed. I put it in a Nina Simone jewel case. He noticed, and we talked briefly about the merits of the CD (it was a compilation). That evolved into a the question: “You like jazz?” and ended with him offering me two tickets to Friday’s performance at the CSO. You never know who you’re going to meet in this world, I suppose.
Joshua Redman was the headliner, I’m sure, but opening was a young woman named Anat Cohen. A quick read of her bio identifies her as a relative newcomer, arriving in New York City in 1999. Her multi-ethnic trio powered their way through four compositions and about 40 minutes of play time. What struck me most was her energy, a quality that isn’t so easily captured on studio recordings. She would catch the beat and happily bounce in place with clarinet in hand.
A slow piece, an Brazillian composition, and a couple of selections from the album she had just put out rounded her evening. What was apparent that, sometimes she would miss her lead in, and the band would have to come back around to pick her up. At those times, she would grin at her bandmates and keep her foot tapping. She introduced the band twice, obviously happy to share the spotlight. An insert in the program indicated that she’s be in the lobby after the show, and she was, beaming and talking excitedly to new fans.
After a short intermission, Joshua Redman and his James Farm project took the stage. One of the things that bugs me about jazz shows is the fact that the temptation is always there for a big name to phone it in, assured that their place in the canon and the grand pantheon of American music has assured them of another sizable paycheck. In my opinion, Redman didn’t phone it in. But you wouldn’t have known it from the audience’s reaction.
What DID happen, though, is that a LOT of people left. Early. In the middle of the second composition, the exodus started. After he played his last, the crowd on the main floor was about half standing O and half packing the aisles. Even as he came back out for an encore, people did not scramble back to their seats in a madcap rendition of musical chairs; they were headed to Michigan Avenue and all points that were not Symphony Hall.
In our usual seats in the Gallery, you only tackle those Alps-like stairs when you’re sure the show is done. In this Other World we had inhabited for the evening, the lack of stairs emboldened people to get up and leave. The show ended close to 11pm, so I assume that the time had something to do with the rate of exit. Was it Redman’s music? I don’t think so, although there were a few times were the effect would have been doubled if he’d played some passages louder or expounded on some seemingly lazy phrases, but it was what it was.
If anything, this evening introduced me to an artist I had previously not heard of and her music although,a s I mentioned before, I don’t know if her live presence translates well to anything but a live DVD, if only as testament to her energy. Redman? He didn’t suck, but he didn’t bring anything particularly challenging to us either. A lot of chord runs, a lot of discordant drumming and piano playing into which both Cohen and Redman would insert a few notes for significant parts of time.
All in all, my wife and I had a decent time, and we certainly appreciated being able to go.
I have four posts in draft that I can’t seem to finish. Perhaps this will go better, perhaps because it’s all randomness.
-HOCKEY. With the Hawks kicking ass, and a logjam of teams trying to get into the playoffs in the East, this is shaping up to be a great finish to the season. One of my regrets is not having a big enough place to host some sort of hockey party-thing. But, still. HOCKEY.
-I totally understand people gaming the system, but to expect to not get called on the carpet is delusional. If I’ve been doing no work in a dead end job for years, and get called out on it, then I suppose the only beef I should have is why nothing happened sooner.
-Social media has been very very good to me.
-Inspiration comes from everywhere, and I remain inspired by people who create, who wonder, and who can express these thoughts in ways I would not be able to. God bless them all. And you, too.
y’all know that i’ve been doing freelance work for my former employer while i continue my search for a full-time gig. my current project is entertaining b/c the organization’s never done anything like this before and everyone involved in this is making it up as they go along.
today, i had to make an appearance for a meeting with a supporter of the organization. the supporting organization has a program in place that has a few similarities with the project i’m currently working on. my former employer wants to stay on the supporting organization’s good side, so this meeting was of the “o hai we haz a project sorta kinda like yours but not really so could you tell us what works for you so we can maybe use that? kthxbai!” variety.
as much as i dislike these kinds of things, i was willing to suck it up for this meeting. ok, i really had no choice but to suck it up for this meeting. besides, it’s not like i had to give a presentation or anything, so i was going to be content with smiling and nodding and providing a comment here and there.
and so the meeting went. lots of us asking variations of “so what works for your project? how can we adapt that?” and note-taking and the aforementioned smiling, nodding, and commentation.
until…the representative of the supporting organization started discussing how they handle placing applicants in their program. their process involves phone interviews with applicants and the organization making placements as they see fit, based on what the applicants are interested in and what’s available, etc.
the representative went on to mention that there are certain instances where they have to be a bit creative in how they handle a placement. now, knowing that some of their applicants are from outside the u.s., i was prepared for a comment about language barriers. but not this:
“well, we’ve had a couple of african-americans who speak street english…”
i know the representative said something after that, but i’m hard-pressed to remember what. on the outside, i maintained my blank but interested look. on the inside, though…
“wtf? did you really say that out loud? really? granted, i’ve been a bit quiet in this meeting, but I’M SITTING DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM YOU! wtf?”
etc., etc.
and before you ask, no, i didn’t say anything in the meeting. and no, i haven’t talked to the person i’m reporting to on this project about it. i probably won’t, unless they bring it up. i am willing to chalk this up to, as someone else at my former employer put it once i told them about it, “smart people saying stupid things.”
the thing of it is, i feel like my immunity to these kinds of situations has worn off, since i’m no longer working full-time. and you know what really sucks? 1) the fact that i had to build up immunity to these things; and 2) the fact that i recognize that some of that immunity has disappeared. that’s a discussion for another time, though. instead, i’ll leave you with the poem that inspired the title of this post.
i think it’s because i missed this year’s airing of “it’s the easter beagle, charlie brown” and therefore i needed a replacement. so here you are:
troy and i used to turn on the radio and listen as we went to sleep. this was back in the day when wbez still played jazz at night. those were good times. when wbez changed their format (much to our chagrin), we (ok, it was all my idea) switched over to what was at the time wnua. yes, folks, smooth jazz has actually been played in our house. i’m not sorry about it, either. it’s tolerable in small doses (like right before you doze off). but when that station switched formats, we gave up on the whole “radio before sleep” concept. until a week or so ago, when i remembered that there’s a new smooth jazz station. i won’t say there was much rejoicing, but it was nice to have an option again. actually, i know there’s a lot of people who rejoiced when this station appeared, but that’s a separate discussion.
i say all of that to say that i was listening as i was trying to get to sleep last night and heard the following 3 songs:
sade: “babyfather” – this is from her new album (and you have no idea how nice it is to be able to say her new album) and i had no idea it was being played as a single.
dave brubeck quartet: “take five” – i don’t have to say anything about this song, do i?
simply red (!): “sunrise” – i admit to being *thisclose* to getting out of bed to blog/tweet about this last night when this song 1st came on, b/c any station that plays sade, dave brubeck, and what i thought was hall & oates back-to-back-to-back is ok with me, but then i realized it wasn’t hall & oates. i couldn’t quite figure out who it was until the dj said it was simply red (!). and simply red gets the (!) treatment b/c, well, it’s simply red (!) and i’d kinda forgotten they existed.
i think this is where i’m supposed to rant about the current sucktasticness of radio and how it’s all owned by conglomerates and all the stations play all the same artists and it’s nothing you want to hear and hooray internet b/c how else would we have music we’d want to listen to and all that, but in this instance, radio was actually pretty cool. i’m sure there was some sucktasticness later in that set, but i was asleep by then and missed it, so oh well. 
james died a year ago today. my original plan was to stay at home and take a quick trip to emo-land, emerging briefly to text carol to see how she was holding up, and then back to emo-land until troy got home from work.
well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans. or something. i was walking from conor & abby’s back to the train station a couple of weeks ago and mulling over the list of dates abby had given me for watching ali this month. it dawned on me that march 8 was one of the dates. i was trying to figure out how i was going to feel about changing my plans on that date and if i’d be up for it, emotionally.
then james “spoke” to me as clearly as if he was on the phone w/me or walking right next to me. i’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that he gave me the go-ahead to leave the house and not be emo. once i stopped laughing from the absurdity of it all (ask me about it off-line if you want), i decided to try to be a little zen about it. ok, james died this time last year, and i’ll be watching ali, circle of life, blah blah blah. not the strongest strategy i’ve ever come up with, but i was willing to work with it.
until late last week when i got news about some unmitigated bullshit w/r/t a longtime family friend who’s been in the hospital for a little over a week now. i’ve been pissed off about it off and on since saturday, and had managed to get myself into a state of quasi-zen today while babysitting ali. b/c, really, how pissed off can you be when you’re hanging out with a 8-month-old who (thankfully) wasn’t having too terrible of a day?
but i digress. i returned to pissivitity (i’m not even gonna spell-check that b/c i’m not entirely convinced it’s an actual word, so bear with me) this afternoon when i got an update about the aforementioned longtime family friend’s condition. the bullshit is still there but there was a temporary window into which someone impacted by said bullshit could peek through and get some clarity. yes, i know that’s vague, and i’m sorry, but certain folks who are involved (even peripherally) in said bullshit are on teh internets and the last thing i need is bullshit coming directly to my inbox.
in the middle of all that, carol & i were exchanging texts and she mentioned that this bullshit-ridden situation was proving to be a distraction from what the day would’ve meant. i felt some kind of way about that. on one hand, i’m glad that she has other things to focus on so she doesn’t drift off into emo-land. on the other hand, though, i’m pissed b/c the bullshit-laden situation is, well, bullshit, and none of us should have to deal with said bullshit, but here it is, which is bullshit.
(pretty sure i’ve set a record for number of times i’ve used pissed [and variations thereof] and bullshit in one post.)
it’s been an…interesting year. my niece got married, and she and her husband are expecting their first child this summer. my brother (he who was secretly divorced and has since married someone else) is going to be a father again this summer. back to the whole circle of life thing, y’know?
if heaven exists, i’m banking on james being there right now with our parents and having a good laugh at my expense for working myself into such a state. that actually makes me feel better.
typing this out also makes me feel better. reading this all the way through probably made you feel confused. such are the risks you take when you visit urbantherapy. don’t let it scare you away, though. it’s not all pissivitity and bullshit over here. sometimes there are lolz.
I’ve been studying some computer stuff at work in these random lulls in activity we’ve been having. Figured that I’d be productive and crack open a book and take some notes. Problem: since college, I have no aptitude for sitting and reading and taking notes. I was getting so sleepy I lost consciousness for a few seconds. Then I figured it was best if I just got up and did something else.
So I got up, put my coat on, and went to the 57th Street Bookstore, which is a short trek through an alley and half-a-block away.
The penultimate Twilight Zone episode features a dude who only wants to read, and when the world ends, and it’s nothing but him and books. Then, the most dastardly, wrongish, coldblooded thing EVAR happens to him that I shudder thinking about it. (That episode is also why I have not watched a single episode since I saw that one; I have no idea how anything else could affect me as badly as that episode did. I keep a spare pair of glasses just BECAUSE OF THAT EPISODE.)
I’ve raved about the bookstore before; I come not to praise it as a customer service haven, but a place where books are waiting. Picking them up, reading the back covers, maybe flipping through and reading a few pages. Recipe books about cooking with fat. A biography of Louis Armstrong. Sonia Sanchez haikus. And I, quite literally, am a kid in a candy store. And it makes me happy to write about.
And then I remember that I can’t buy anything because I have no money to buy them and we have no place to put yet more books. But I’m okay with that. For now.
i figured it was time for a new post, now that our outing to margie’s has passed. what better way to follow-up a post about margie’s than with a list of recipes? 
sauteed chicken with tonnato sauce: i didn’t try my hand at the sauce b/c, well, it sounded kinda gross. i was more interested in new/different ways to prepare chicken breasts, and this was nom.
fettuccine alfredo with bacon: not as nom as it could’ve been, primarily b/c i misread the recipe and added too much cheese. yes, i know, there’s no such thing as too much cheese, but in this case, it’s true. i’d try making it again, though, with the correct amount of cheese, to see what the difference is in taste.
shrimp and wild rice casserole: i’d tried my hand at this once before and decided to revisit it. glad i did, b/c it was nom. would make again.
butterscotch and black pepper carrots: nom. i didn’t slice the carrots in half, b/c they’re baby carrots and i didn’t really see the point.
weekend brunch casserole: nom. this is one of those recipes that i look at and realize that troy and i like all of the ingredients and therefore we should like the finished product. and we did.
tilapia soft tacos with chipotle cream: i didn’t actually make tacos or the chipotle cream sauce. the tilapia was nom, though. would make again.
chicken with cocoa tomato sauce: meh. i was disappointed with this one. this should’ve been epic nom, right? there’s chicken, there’s cocoa, there’s tomatoes and other yummy things, so therefore, this should be delicious. and it was. sorta. the cocoa taste was drowned out by everything else, and i don’t know if i care enough about this recipe to try it again and adding more cocoa powder.
balsamic pork chops: nom. would make again.
sausage and egg casserole with sundried tomatoes and mozzarella: meh. it was good, but not “omg nom must make again” good. i might try it again at some point.
lemon pasta with roasted shrimp: this, on the other hand, i’d make again. i used a pound of large (31-40 count) shrimp instead of 2 lbs. of the smaller shrimp, and linguine instead of angel hair pasta b/c that’s what i had on hand.
tilapia with green beans: somewhere b/t nom and meh. the tilapia was nom. the veggies, not so much. i think i want to try this again in the summer when i can get green beans and tomatoes from the farmers market, as opposed to when i tried this a couple of weeks ago and relied on the produce selection at jewel.