Category Archives: Food & Beverage

Boh Cameronian

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Not long ago I was informed that I could add a relatively inexpensive item to the Amazon basket to bring an order (that other people in the house wanted) up to the no-shipping-charge level. Funny how that works, but what to get?

I believe this is derisively known as a First World problem, but even in a context of affluence, that doesn’t count as a problem. It isn’t even an annoyance. Also, isn’t it time to retire that hoary old division of the world? (Not bad, but not my favorite song of theirs; that would be “Invisible Sun.”)

I decided I didn’t want to add to my household clutter, even things you (I) can’t have too many of — books, postcards, cheap coins, maps — so I got a box of Boh Cameronian.
Boh Cameronian! It’s been nearly 25 years since I had a fine cup of Boh, which is tea from the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia. I became acquainted with it on my first visit to that nation in 1992. Two years later, we visited the Boh tea plantation up in the highlands.
Cameron Highlands Boh tea plantationNote the long-sleeve shirt. The Cameron Highlands were a hill station for a reason.

I’ve never seen Boh tea on the shelf in the United States, unlike Typhoo tea, even in stores that carry unusual or rarefied imports. In more recent years, I checked on line for the tea. I found it, but at astronomical prices.

I hadn’t checked in a good while, and never on Amazon. When facing my First World problem, I was inspired to look for Boh. A box of 60 bags was available there for about $12, plus no shipping. Twenty cents a bag. More than, say, Lipton, but you don’t buy Lipton for nostalgia value, or much of anything but price.

Even if I took the recommendation on the box and limited one bag to making one cup of tea — which I suspect is merely to encourage more consumption — that would be 20¢ a cup. More likely I will make a pot with each bag, or about three cups: around 7¢ a cup. Entirely worth it.

The marketing blarney on the box is in English and Chinese. The English:

Boh Cameronian takes its name from the Cameron Highlands, one of those special regions in the world blessed with a superb environment for growing teas of unique character and quality. Here, at 5000 feet above sea level at the scenic Boh Gardens, time-honored methods and innovation are combined to yield fine teas. Founded in 1929 by J.A. Russell, the pioneer of Malaysia’s tea industry, Boh teas are today renowned for their freshness and distinctive flavour.

The company offers a short history of Russell and the Boh plantation here.

I haven’t opened the box yet. It came just yesterday. A pleasant moment over the weekend might be the time to make a pot of Boh. I doubt that I can wait for that first cup till it’s nice enough to sit out on the deck, but I bet I’ll enjoy the some Boh al fresco in the near future.

Wine Label Art

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As I’ve mentioned before, I like the idea of wine better than wine itself, which pretty much goes for any intoxicant. One reason to like wine is wine bottles, and one reason to like wine bottles is the label.

Here’s a collection of labels used by Château Mouton Rothschild for more than 70 years. The winery has been hiring an artist a year to create its labels, with some interesting results.

But you don’t have to go all the way to the Médoc to see interesting wine labels. I can do that at a grocery store a few miles away.

This one caught my eye recently.
I don’t think Franklin counts as a Federalist. Sure, he supported the ratification of the Constitution, but in terms of participation in politics, Franklin found himself at a major disadvantage by the time the Federalists became a force in U.S. politics. Namely, he was dead.

There are plenty of actual Federalists who could be on a wine label. Famously, Alexander Hamilton or John Adams. Less famously, but more interestingly, DeWitt Clinton, Rufus King or Charles Pinckney. Well, maybe not Pinckney, since he owned a lot of slaves, but King was an abolitionist before it was cool.

Turns out, the winery did put Hamilton on a different bottle. Along with Washington (he of no faction!) and, incongruously, Lincoln. People might get the wrong idea if you called your product Republican Wine, but there’s always Whig Wine. Lincoln was originally one, after all, and it opens up the possibility of Daniel Webster or Horace Greeley on a bottle.

I saw this and thought: Botero.
I couldn’t find any evidence that Botero himself did the Bastardo label, though as Château Mouton Rothschild shows, artists are hired for such work. Shucks, you don’t even have to be a painter to shill for inexpensive wine.

Another artist-created label.
By one Victo Ngai, whom I’d never heard of. Raised in Hong Kong and current resident of California. She’s done a number of labels for Prophecy; probably a good gig. Just another one of the things you can learn poking around grocery stores.

A Thousand-Plus Words About Cake

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Yuriko’s latest creation at cake class.

Looks like plain chocolate, but it’s intense, dark and rich, with a vein of apricot jam running through it and a touch of gold to mark the apex. We enjoyed it thoroughly tonight and will again tomorrow.

Frozen March

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The calendar turns to March, winter doesn’t care. Below freezing most of the time in recent days, close to single digits some nights, but at least no ice or snow from the sky. I understand the Northeast is getting blasted now, but the storm bypassed this part of the Midwest. All we have it rims of dirty snow and ice.

A week ago, when I flew from Dallas to Chicago, skies were cold and clear but also windy, at least at Midway. Not windy enough to prevent landing, but the pilot did warn us that the landing might be bumpy.

He wasn’t just whistling Dixie. Besides regular turbulence, the jet shook from side-to-side, not violently, but more than you’d want, even after it had touched down on the runway. When the plane finally came to a stop, spontaneous applause broke out. It was that kind of landing. You know, a good one. We all walked away from it.

I looked at this posting the other day and was surprised to remember that I’ve been watching The Americans for that long — since March 2013. Watched the penultimate episode on Friday night. Wow, it was good.

The last season has been on demand for a while now, but I refuse to gobble them up like little chocolate doughnuts. I take them more like Toblerone, a sweet triangle at a time, back when that confection was hard to find in the United States.

(I remember an irritating guest we had late in college at our house in early ’80s Nashville. His worst offence was snarfing down our entire Toblerone bar when no one was watching.)

TV was meant for weekly installments. That’s in Leviticus, I think. Except maybe Batman during the original run. Commentaries vary.

I understand The Americans finale is a corker, and I believe it, though I don’t know the details. The show’s nothing if not suspenseful. Sorry to see it end.

Texas Winter ’19

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My recent trip to wintertime Texas took me to Dallas and Fort Worth, San Antonio, and a few other burgs. February is winter in Texas, but it’s a pale moon of a winter compared with where I live. During the trip, temps varied but didn’t drop below freezing, and we experienced rain but no ice or snow.

I spent the weekdays working, but I also visited my brothers, one nephew and his family, one nephew by himself and a friend I’ve known for 45 years now.

I made it to a few new places and a few familiar old places. No matter how often you go somewhere, there are always new places, and no matter how familiar an old place is, there are always new aspects.

One new place was the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which I’ve had a mind to see since we went to Wrightwood 659 in December. Tadao Ando designed both Wrightwood and the Modern, which is easy to visit from Dallas, as Jay and I did: just pop on over on I-30.

While gadding around in greater DFW, we also saw the Cao Dai Tay Ninh Temple and the Cambodian Buddhist Temple of Dallas, whose neighbors in the southwest of the city are the likes of Mission Foods, Standard Meat, Cartamundi USA and Old Dominion Freight Line.

In San Antonio, we had the benefit of a free evening admission to the McNay Art Museum — an example of a familiar place offering some new things to see. Later, while on the road between San Antonio and Dallas, we stopped by the Hays County Courthouse in San Marcos and the San Marcos City Cemetery, whose burials go back to the 1870s.

Had some good meals along the way too. In San Antonio, a dinner at one of the Paesanos locations, a local Italian restaurant with roots in the 1968 world’s fair. Good pork shank and gnocchi. In Waco, a lunch at a joint that goes even further back: the curiously named Health Camp, in business, as the exterior says, since 1949. Good burger and shake.

In Dallas, on the day I flew in, I enjoyed sausage and homemade sauerkraut and Texas beer and other good things at my nephew Sam’s house, on the occasion of his 36th birthday. Naturally there was birthday cake too.

Reminded me of the morning, late in my college career, when Jay called me to tell me that Sam had been born. Been an uncle ever since.

Ann at 16

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After the deep freeze at the end of January, we had some warmer days — above freezing, quite a relief — and more recently just ordinary winter cold. The sort of persistent chill that makes February both the shortest and the longest month.

On Saturday, Ann had friends over for her 16th birthday.

She requested a birthday pie. Chocolate and peanut butter, made by a local grocery store that does fine pies.

Which reminds me of the question — something I’ve wondered about occasionally — why cake? Why not birthday pie? I suppose since cakes don’t need refrigeration, they trumped pies in pre-refrigeration days.

But why cakes at all? Know who I suspect of inventing the custom? Victorians, of course.

I’m not sure how reliable this source is, but it implies that while birthday cake had antecedents in German lands before the 19th century, the Victorian middle class made it the popular custom we know today. Like the Christmas tree.

In fact, birthday celebrations themselves, especially children’s birthdays, became popular in their modern form during the mid-19th century. Can’t say I’m surprised.

Cow Ride at the Mall

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Australia Day has come and gone. Oz is reportedly suffering a viciously hot summer this year. Adelaide, a pleasant place in my recollection, seems to be getting hit especially hard.

Meanwhile, here in North America, or at least my part of it, after being a slacker for most of December and part of January, winter is hitting hard. Dead ahead, according to the NWS on Sunday evening:

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 9 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM CST MONDAY… Heavy snow and blowing snow tonight with freezing drizzle and blowing snow likely at times Monday. Snow rates overnight into early morning are likely to reach up to an inch per hour at times. This will result in very low visibilities and rapid snow accumulations into the early morning commute. Total snow accumulations of 3 to 7 inches and ice accumulations of a light glaze expected.

This after subzero temps on Friday, and ahead of temps as low as minus 20 by Tuesday (Fahrenheit, the only scale that’s made for humans). Still, on Saturday things had warmed up to low double-digits, so we were out for a while. The three of us and a friend of Ann’s, on the occasion, not quite precisely, of Ann’s birthday. Nice to get out of the house.

We ate at Gabuttø Burger at Ann’s request. Since I discovered the place at the Mitsuwa food court, the Japanese burgerie has moved into a small strip center on a busy street in Rolling Meadows and seems to be doing well there. We visit a few times a year.

Then to a northwest suburban mall. Not the biggest one, the 2.1 million-square-foot Woodfield, but a smaller one. The one we visited isn’t a dying mall, but it has lost an anchor or two, along with some of its inline stores.

Still, the mall is doing what it can. It now sports a number of places to take children and entertain them, for instance. Not playplaces in the middle of the mall, but small entertainment venues that used to be more conventional retail.

Including a place where you can rent animal-ride scooters for a few minutes. She’s not in the main demographic, but according to Ann, it was a birthday thing to do, so she and her friend spent 10 minutes tooling around the mall.

She picked a cow. Looked like she had a jolly time of it.

First Thursday Debris of 2019

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I was glad to hear about the successful flyby of Ultima Thule at the beginning of the year. And to see the public domain photos. Who wouldn’t be?
Not long ago I also read that actual interstellar probes — or what this article terms “precursor” interstellar probes — are under serious consideration by the people who plan robotic space probes.

Space.com: “The APL study — which focuses on a mission that could launch before 2030 and reach 1,000 AU in 50 years — is based on the next extension of what we know we can do, propulsion physicist Marc Millis, founder of the Tau Zero Foundation, said.

” ‘It is a reasonable candidate for the next deep-space mission,’ Millis told Space.com. ‘It is not, however, a true interstellar mission. It is better referred to as an “interstellar precursor” mission.’ ”

After that I had to look up the Tau Zero Foundation. An organization promoting interstellar space flight. There’s a long-term goal we can all get behind.

A shot of floor tiles at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Some variation of that pattern can be a symbol for the interstellar ambitions of humanity.

I haven’t given much thought to Brussels sprouts over the years, since I’m not especially fond of them. So I looked down in surprise recently at a grocery store at Brussels sprouts still on the stalk.
There’s something a little otherworldly about the stalks when still in the ground.

Not the best of images, but I thought I’d take some before the 2018-19 tree gets the heave-ho.
Its last lighting might be tomorrow.

The Last Days of the Heartland Cafe

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At the intersection of W. Lunt Ave. and N. Glenwood Ave., tucked in a corner of Chicago’s far north Rogers Park neighborhood, is the Heartland Cafe. A neighborhood institution.
Word is that the Heartland is closing on December 31. That was a surprise, since it’s been around a long time — opening during the last year of the Ford administration.

I first went there in 1987 with a friend of mine, Becky, who liked the Heartland because of its vegan options. She was a vegan and told me that suitable items on Chicago restaurant menus were hard to find. After that introduction, I went periodically in the ’80s and ’90s, not because of vegan or even non-meat offerings — widely available now — but because the place makes good food at reasonable prices.

When I learned of its closing, I knew I wanted to go one more time. So we went on Sunday. The drive to Rogers Park from Humboldt Park, where Yuriko takes her cake class, is a slog. Driving through the city is usually a slog. But I’m glad we went.

For lunch I had a very non-vegan Reuben sandwich, a good choice. Yuriko had a breakfast burrito, also good.

Google Maps, which has incorrect information sometimes, is wrong about the Heartland. Its thumbnail description for the place is “vegetarian eatery with a hippie vibe.” Meat is all over the regular menu, so no. And a hippie vibe? What does that even mean? Besides, hippies were passe even by 1976.

As restaurants go, the Heartland has more of a diner vibe. Simplicity.

The Hope poster shows more than mere political sympathies, though it does do that. Rather, the Heartland is one of the places that Barack Obama appeared during his run for the U.S. Senate in those seeming long-ago days of 2004.

Murals adorn the Glenwood embankment across from the restaurant.

They weren’t there the last time I went to the Heartland, whenever that was (ca. 2000 would be a good guess). They’re part of a Rogers Park-specific initiative, Mile of Murals, and were painted in 2010 by a variety of artists.

Among many other things, the Heartland makes an appearance on the wall.

Guess the image will be there longer than the restaurant itself.

November Leftovers

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The amount of Thanksgiving leftovers, a week after the holiday, is down to a single container, a mix of stuffing and mashed potatoes. It has taken some eating to get to this point.

A week ago, our plates were full like so:

The protein this year, tilapia. On this plate, stuffing transitions to potatoes and that transitions to macaroni and cheese, something like the snow-ice-rain progression on recent weather maps.