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.