November 2013

Travel

Philadelphia PA, for the AAMC Annual meeting, 5 days in the city of brotherly love. I really wasn't able to do much except eat out.

Some great meals though:
Thursday: Zahav, fine Israeli dining at the best Israeli restaurant in the USA (around $50 for the tasting menu). We were a party of fifteen and the service was excellent.
Friday: A great restaurant in ChinaTown
Saturday:  A Thai/Vietnamese place - Pho Xe Lua
Sunday: Indian - Karma, an upmarket Indian restaurant with both a modern and traditional menu all of the Shreveport team dined together.
Monday: Caribou Cafe, excellent French menu, an entertaining evening out with Jane and Melanie.

I  managed to eat lunch out at the Reading station and stood in line for traditional Philly fare.

Books

The Land of Dreams (Minnesota Trilogy): Sundstol, Vidar

I got this as a bonus Kindle book after buying the hardback.

I would like to say that I really enjoyed this, it is certainly in the dark Scandinavian fiction genre I like so much but it wasn't in the same league as some of the others. The plot is fairly weak and most of the narrative seems to be confined to the amazement of the main character that people who are many generations removed from immigrants still identify with that ethnic group. This recurring theme obviously fascinates the author, for anyone living in America for a period of time, this is no real surprise.  The murder story is more conventional police procedural, which may improve over the next two books. I hope that the detective can get over the Norwegian American thing for long enough to tell his story.

Bat, The first Harry Hole novel: Jo Nesbo
I read two of the later books and really enjoyed them. This is the first and we find Harry in Australia, solving some complex murders and being, as always, Harry. He returns to drink, gains and loses a girl with his wit and style in place. Jo Nesbo is just starting to set down the character here much better developed later, but all the elements are in place and it was a great read.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch: Neil Gaiman with Terry Pratchett.

This book could have been part of discworld, that is how strong of an influence Pratchett has had over its content. A boy is born, the anti-christ but there is a bit of a mix up at birth and the a friendly angel and demon follow the wrong child (he's not the antichrist he's a very naughty boy). Eventually with the help of the hound of hell and a book of prophecies they identify the anti-christ and avoid the inevitable. I will certainly get some more Gaiman.

Films: Notable

Gravity

The Royal Physician's visit

Guests:
Noam came home over thanksgiving, which was great for all of us.
Jane and Donna joined us for thanksgiving dinner: Turkey, Latkes and something baked from the Jerusalem cookbook.
The Reeds joined us on Saturday 29th for dinner, brisket, latkes pickled red cabbage and curried carrot soup for starters.

Competitions

Gil had two this month, now he can drive  we can turn up later. Perhaps unsurprisingly as he now is ranked a D fencer, he received the gold medal in both his events.

New Restaurants:

There is a new place "twisted root burger company" just behind the house. So we decided to treat Gil for Saturday lunch after his gold medal. We sat at the bar to avoid the long-line in the order queue. The fries were good, the burger dry and both Yehudit and I had stomach ache afterwards, though that may have been due to the overload of a full meal. The beer "on-tap" was excellent. Overall it was OK, I am not sure we would rush back there for food anytime soon.

October 2013

Reading:

Discovering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing: Anya Von Bremzen. A delightful book. This combines both a social history of the Soviet Union, along with a history of Soviet Cuisine and an immigration and longing story. The author normally writes cookbooks and has a natural curiosity for the intimate relationship between man and food, so much preparation (and in this case standing in line) for a few minutes as her mother, in great Jewish tradition wolfs down her portion. She is clearly torn between her nostalgia foods from her homeland and the current state of the region once known as the USSR. I must say, the first few times I visited London after moving to the US, I did gorge myself on my old comfort foods, only to find them far less exciting than my memory had told me.

Let's explore Diabetes with Owls: David Sedaris.

Another book of short stories by one of the best modern story tellers. This was rather a mixed bag. Some laugh out loud but a number where fairly hum-drum stuff. But worth reading, the experience of someone American living in London is always amusing and those were the stories I liked the best. 

Major Pettigrew's last stand: Helen Simonson
Rather too sweet a book about love, class loss and the English countryside. Some flare in the relationship of immigrants to the others in rural England but all a little too predictable in the end. One wonders, of course, how much overt racism does exist between the Upper-middle's and the immigrant shopkeepers in the countryside but this book does not go far enough to really explore that beyond some overt scenes meant to shock. It was sweet enough though, an enjoyable read for a few days.

Concerts:

Live at the Red River Revel: The Blind Boys from Alabama

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Six-time Grammy-winning gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama was first formed at Alabama's Talladega Institute for the Blind in 1939. 

This was a free concert on the first Monday of the revel, open-air with a cool breeze and an evening in the low 70s F. A beautiful evening of Gospel mixed with some new, more contemporary tracks a really good turn out, most of the tables being full. We were able to stay for the whole thing as Gil is now able to drive himself to fencing.

At the Strand Theatre: David Sedaris live. This was a great night out, had all of us, including Gil, laughing out loud. Pleasant surprises included almost everyone we knew in Shreveport, and that the show was a sell out. He is after all a very liberal and Gay intellectual which is not typical Shreveport entertainment. He told jokes, read a few stories and signed books, a really great night out which, as all great entertainment seems to, passed in what seemed like a few moments. 

Events:

Saturday 5 to Sunday 6: Louisiana High School fencing championships. On Saturday Gil lost by one touch to a 23 year old in the "past champions " category. Then the Magnet team (psychopaths) beat Loyola. We returned on Sunday for the main event, by the time we had both run and showered Gil was half way through the pools winning 6 out of 7 of the 5 point bouts. He ended up ranked third after the pools. He had a few really easy wins in the direct elimination and as usual we ended up with a thrilling bout for the championship. Gil ended up against a fencer from New Orleans, Ryan Davis. It went double touch to double touch until 14:14 at which point Gil found his anger and rushed out and scored the winning touch, well done Gil! that makes the second year he has won. 

Saturday October 26: Having risen at 6 to drive to New Orleans we found ourselves watching Gil in another great show of fast and skillful fencing. He won 3 out of 5 in the pools, getting himself a bye for the first round of DEs then after a fairly easy first DE he fenced a D ranked fencer to get into the semi-finals, it was touch for touch for a while but he managed to win 15:13. The other fencer had the annoying habit of shouting every time he won a point, which is rare in epee fencing. He was also incredulous every time he thought he had struck Gil, he asked for a weapon check, he was dumbfounded that he didn't win. In the semi's Gil was fairly beaten by a Fencing teacher, with 4 kids and his own club (15:8) who went on to win the competition. After placing in the semi's Gil has earned his national ranking of D. well done Gil!

Exercise:

The bike/run/bike etc has been working well. I have managed about 70 miles riding in the past week or two. A long bike run (20 miles) in the morning of Saturday out to the Pecan station. 
20th: I am now managing bike/run 6 days a week or so. We had a great 17 miles today, parking out by the Pecan station and riding at about 14 miles an hour fairly steadily, which was harder work for Yehudit on the mountain bike than it was for me.

Trips:

26-27 October. A Saturday night in New Orleans at the Ramada in Metarie, Happily a much nicer hotel than its front entrance would suggest. We managed to eat out with Marc Kahn and his wife at the Hilton's Drago restaurant which was rather good, first Oysters I have ever eaten!. We managed to visit Noam's new house which looks very sweet.

September 2013

Trips: Yoni and Daci in Minneapolis:

A fantastic long weekend in which we ate out a lot; We kicked off the first night at the 112 eatery downtown., an interesting menu and refreshing beer in a newly gentrified area. Gil was amused at the trendy shops cheek by jowl with the strip joints. Ice cream later at Izzy's , where I had a licorice flavor, a little strange but good. We later walked over the stone bridge as the weather was so pleasant. The next day started with a brisk run around lake Minnehaha, Yoni, Judy and myself about three miles easy without the heat of home and then on to the state fair for the rest of the day. That evening we ate at  Pizzeria Lola where we waited an hour for a table. The wait seemingly shorter as we met a friend of Daci's from Louisiana who is now a fellow in Florida, amazingly a student of my friend Marc Kahn from Tulane. Pizza was tremendous the beer refreshing and, surprisingly, it was not too noisy. The number of trendy places to eat in Minneapolis is amazing, I wonder what these are like in the winter? On Sunday we rode on rented bikes for the best part of the day about 15 miles mostly on bike paths and breakfast at Tilia . We managed to keep it down to the allotted 30 mins between stations most of the time. In the evening, Jewish food at Cecil's a real kosher style place, without Bloom's rude waiters. 

Home on Monday driving from DFW. 

Concerts: Saturday 9/21 at the Shreveport symphony:

Starting the season off with the National Anthem: I have never heard the Star Spangled Banner played by a full orchestra before, it was very moving and everyone sang along.

Followed by Finlandia, another national anthem also very strong and inspiring. Then another SIbelius, the violin concerto played by Jennifer Koh. I did like her playing which was very spirited and lively but I can't say I enjoyed the music very much. The second half was Brahms symphony No. 1 which was excellent.

Reading

Alan Furst: Kingdom of Shadows, an excellent noir thriller about the intrigues in central Europe  immediately prior to world war II. The characters are fallible and believable and the plot interesting and current. The moral dilemma shown as the members of the Hungarian delegation try to do the "right thing" which means that even they sometimes have to work with the Germans lends an interesting dimension to this thriller. I will be getting some more of his work in the near future:

David Mitchell: Black Swan Green. A bildungsroman set in rural England at a time shortly after my own childhood. I enjoyed this immensely. A year  seen through the eyes of a troubled thirteen year old. Thatcher's attack on the Falkland, the jingoism it initiated set against the almost Adrian Mole like school days of Jason and his friends. The turmoil caused in an otherwise confused enough life by his Father's odd behavior and the normality of his existence. I had read the thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet and this was as good, different of course but a wonderfully entertaining read.

Coleen McCullouch: Caesar. A fairly predictable novelization of the life of one of those great men we cannot seem to stop reading about. All now feature Lucius Verenus and Titus Pullo, because they are mentioned in the Gallic wars, I have enjoyed her historical fiction in the past. This one seemed a dramatization of Caesar's own Gallic wars. I actually delved into a translation along with the novel and, for the most part, it follows the plot fairly closely. 

Jhumpa Lahiri: The Lowland. Again she never fails to write engaging intelligent fiction. Perhaps it is due to her book's themes of immigrants and angst, success and failure but they always appeal to me. THis one follows a brothers attempts to help his brother's widow and child by moving them to New England. A novel of loss and longing, despair and academic success and failure. Not a simple tale rich with some more modern history of the Naxalite movement, a wonderful read.

Listening:

(added to itunes in the last month)

Fritz Reiner- Magorsky, Pictures at an exhibition
Shostakovich - 13th symphony Babi-Yar

Exercising:

Picking up the jogging, getting back to every other day now the weather is starting to cool in the evenings, trying to bike on alternate running days. Only 25 miles run this month, not really good enough.

Watching:

The Good Wife:Newsroom:Last Tango in Halifax:Boardwalk Empire

Major Purchases:

A Specialized, Sirrus bicycle ($520) and all the gear that goes with that.