Sunday, January 25, 2009

january firsts

sundance film festival
thanks to a twist of fate and some helpful tips from dax, i found myself in park city, ut, watching afhan star, a documentary on the socio-political implications of afghanistan's answer to american idol. after the film and a brief q&a including the tv show host, daoud sediqi, this reality-tv-hater went back to sister liz's to catch up on the current season of afghan star.

pick me up cafe
forget coffee - get the new yorker: tofu or eggs, potatoes, peppers, mushrooms, onions, and goat cheese. if you ever find yourself in chicago, check out this 24-hour lakeview joint. turns out i'm not the first to love it for the variety of vegetarian and vegan options, but i might have been the first to propose to my breakfast-for-dinner meal. guhl.

the train ride home
i did it. i took the wolverine 354 from chicago to detroit and, well, it was a trip (christine, hats off to you and ryan for making it with a toddler). the train left 2.5 hours late (8:30pm - 3am, not 6pm-midnight). boo. time aside, it was pretty posh: roomy, minimal baggage restrictions, walk around at will...i could see myself doing it again sometime.

romanian food
reading 250 pages of lenin's tomb only to discover that romania was never part of the soviet union should have satisfied my spontaneous interest in the country where baby rach is serving a mission. when i discovered the bucharest grill last week i should not have gone knowing that everything romanian on the menu was meat-centric. but i did. fortunately for herbivores like me, bucharest grill also makes a mean veggie schwarma...the menu's eclectic, to say the least.

sledding hills
yesterday i swore that shiawassee hill was was the biggest, baddest sledding hill in southeast michigan (a statement i immediately regretted making, having personally experienced only two michigan sledding hills). fortunately, it lived up. nephew duo:spastic-fantastic bolted out of the van to attack the icy slope. their three-year-old sister, leta, proceeded more cautiously: "this is wary slippery. (nervous laugh). it's skeery." she and i had one gloriously bumpy run before she requested to wait in the car. today the boys begged for a comparative trip to their local sledding hill. with a smoother ride and less intimidating decline, leta tried again and loved it. on the way home her brothers congratulated her: "leta! that was pretty good for your first time!" first time sledding? oops. who knew?

8 comments:

Jordan and Jessie said...

Jess and I had an authentic Romanian dish when we were in Florida.

Take a celery root, peel and shred it (like cheese). Then mix it with mayonaisse and whatever else you want (carrots, apples, nuts etc.). It's like a chicken salad but no chicken!

johnny said...

thanks for the recommendation - i'll definitely try it.

who introduced you and jess to the dish?

Jordan and Jessie said...

Jess' brothers, girlfriends', husbands', parents from Romania! Can you follow that? Haha. They made us some good vegetarian food. Another dish they had tasted somewhat like grits but different. Not sure what it was though.

Jordan and Jessie said...

Brothers', girlfriends', sisters' , husbands', parents. I messed it up the first time.

a.k.a. Suga Jones said...

I love that you have so many international adventures in your own backyard. Good stuff.

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Erin said...

I was ALSO in park city during sundance! What a missed, MISSED opportunity! How I would have loved to have seen you...

johnny said...

major bummer! did you go to the festival?