Weekend Update

Spent the weekend in Portland. Didn't get much done. I tried to write lecture notes for a talk on Whitman, Dickinson, and Hopkins, but drank beer instead. I also didn't get much grading done.

I did, however, eat the following foods: chicken wings, lamb meatballs, shrimp wontons with citrus-cilantro dipping sauce, Cuban vaca frita (with beet salad), fried plantains, a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich, two fish tacos (the white sauce was more pink than white, however), and a bunch of drinks.

I'm saving for last my life-changing asparagus experience. I've spent the past 30 years thinking that I did not like asparagus. Then, Friday night, one of my dining companions ordered the special appetizer of the day at a hipster/yuppie hangout called "Imbibe!" Anyway, the asparagus was very young, very tender, and it was grilled. It tasted lightly of smoke and char and green. It was delicious. Served with a very good romesco sauce, it was perfect.

*

I was also thinking that the Purple Heart is a bullshit medal. All you have to do to get one is to get hurt. In combat, that is. When I was in the Navy, I worked in an office. I often stapled a finger or smashed my thumb between heavy books, but I was never awarded a medal. But that's because I wasn't in combat. But those who are in combat--isn't getting a Purple Heart for taking shrapnel akin to getting a Navy Achievement Medal for stapling one's finger, i.e. doing your job? Oh wait, I knew plenty of people who got medals for simply doing their jobs. Nevermind.

*
Saturday morning I moseyed on over to Powell's Books for Cooks and peeped the new Gastronomica with Shanna's lovely Jacques Pepin poem. It was a delight. Then I sampled some ravioli and contemplated buying a pound of slab bacon.