Splitting the check and breaking the bank

A few weeks ago I was back in Boston visiting some friends and a series of events triggered my memory and I decided to finally write this long-awaited post.

There are several ways to split a check at a bar or restaurant. For some reason, whatever way the table chooses to deal with the check, I always seem to be the one getting short-changed. The following are the various ways I have encountered check splitting and as far as I can tell, none of them work out, well, at least to my advantage.

1. The 5-Way. The check arrives at the table and someone in your party of 5 announces: "Ah, let's just spilt the check 5 ways." Freeze. My mind races as I recount what I ordered: one beer, and the vegetarian curry. I quickly compare my dinner with those at the table who ordered appetizers, fancy mixed drinks, and expensive meat dishes. Not wanting to be the miser of the group and remind everyone that my dinner was only $11 + tax and tip, I bite my tongue, and begrudgingly put $30 on my credit card.

2. The "I have to head out." Right after everyone takes their last bite of Pho noodle soup, one person at a table of 6 says: "Sorry guys! I have to head out! I'm meeting some friends downtown for a birthday party." They throw a wad of cash on the table, put their coat on, and walk out the door- never to be heard from again. This person is usually a friend of a friend, or someone's new boy or girlfriend. No one has the guts to grab the cash at this point and count it. So, the wad sits there until the check comes and when it does, someone finally grabs the cash, counts it, and throws the abandoned $12 in the pile of money accumulating in the center of the table. When everyone has examined the check, put their portion in, another person (usually the same one who grabbed the abandoned cash) takes all the money and begins to count. There's a moment of silence- a bit of nervousness goes around the table until the check MC announces: "We're $5 short. Everybody throw in another dollar." Wait a second. How does that asshole who left early get out of paying tax and tip on their soup and drink? Again, I convince myself, it's only a dollar, and fork it over.

3. The No Cash option. Several times, I've gone to a restaurant without any cash whatsoever. In fact, my last dime was shoved in the parking meter outside and even that wasn't enough to get me another 15 minutes. So, after a wonderful brunch complete with omelets, coffee, and home fries, the dreaded check arrives and everyone whips out their wallet. I get out mine and quickly remember I'm going plastic this morning. I announce this to the two other diners sitting with me and they usually reply by giving me their cash and telling me to put the whole bill on my credit card. At first I'm happy about this: cash money! Awesome. After handing the card to the waiter and getting the form back to sign, I calculate a $7 tip on a $38 check, walk out of the restaurant, grab the parking ticket off my car, and hastily count the cash I was given. Total: $25. I drive away debating if my $20 breakfast was worth my $35 parking ticket.

4. The separate check route. There will be times, usually with a smaller table, when diners decide to do separate checks. This also depends on the establishment (many times, bars and restaurants refuse to do more than one check per party). Three of us go out for beers and because I didn't get a chance to eat dinner, I order an appetizer of nachos. The oh-so-kind waitress brings out the piping hot nachos and three plates, and three napkin-wrapped bunches of silverware (which no one uses for nachos anyways). Hummm... there goes my dinner. I think to myself while my friends dig in: "Who in their right mind would deny their friends the opportunity to chow down on tasty nachos?" The checks come and I look at mine already sensing my impending doom. Two $4 beers and the $7 nachos. I put down $19 dollars and leave starving.

Oh, and don't think you might as well order the most expensive thing on the menu and ask for 4 refills on that martini, because just when you do, the table decides they don't want to do the 5-way anymore, but rather: "We'll take separate checks."

Underneath this carpet, 35 years ago...

As the youngest in my family, I heard many stories about the time before I was born. There was the story about how my parents had my brother, Scott, at Purdue and lived in married student housing on campus. There was also the story about my sister, Kate, and how her face was all pushed in when she was born. Of course, the story about my other sister, Liz eating a bag of sugar behind the couch. But one of the most memorable stories of all was the one which involved Scott and Kate before either Liz or I was born.

Mom and dad had just bought the farm- literally, they had purchased an 80 acre farm from the Buffenbarger family in 1973. On the property were several out buildings including a large barn, an outhouse, and a chicken coop, cherry, apple, plum, pear and peach trees, and of course, the house that I grew up in. The Buffenbarger family built the original house in the 1850s and they were cheap. The upstairs had never seen a coat of paint, wooden floors had been varnished around the rugs (the logic was: visitors would never see the upstairs and why varnish the whole floor when you only see the bit around the edge of the rug?), and to top it all off, when Mr. Buffenbarger moved out, he took with him a drawer straight from the kitchen cabinets.

Mom and dad began to do some renovations to the house while trying to raise their 3 year-old son and 1 year-old daughter. First things first, the bare plaster in the bedrooms upstairs needed a nice coat of paint. They decided on a neutral cream shade and got to work. While dad was working, mom was working outside, and the kids were supposed to be napping, one of my all-time favorite stories occurred- one which I recently found evidence to support its validity.

A few weeks ago, mom and I were talking about the old carpet upstairs and how it "must be allergen-ridden." After getting the okay from dad, I ripped the carpet out with my own two hands and got rid of it for good, after all, it had served the Fergusson family for 35 years.

Underneath the carpet the story of my brother Scott asking my sister Kate if she wanted to be a ghost came back to life. After she said "yes," Scott proceeded to dump a gallon of that aforementioned cream colored paint on her head. When the paint reached her eyes, she screamed and mom came in from outside and grabbed Kate- immediately throwing her in the kitchen sink and calling the doctor.

The image I posted above was proof for me, who had never witnessed this long-heard about event. Underneath the carpet I saw small white foot prints. I initially thought they were Kate's since she was the one who was painted "like a ghost," but when I recounted the story, they couldn't be because my mom grabbed her and took her down the stairs. The footsteps were Scott's! Upon closer examination, I also saw my mom's sneaker prints in the paint, and not to mention, varnish around a rug that was once there.

When I had heard the story, I imagined the details much differently than the evidence showed. Mom and dad always said that Scott followed mom and left a trail of little white footprints going down the stairs. For some reason, I had always imagined those footprints as one print in the middle of each step. But I didn't think to account for the fact that my brother was only three! In actuality, the prints were against the right side (where he could hang on to the wall) and there were two prints to each step! Scott, with paint-covered feet slowly walked down the hallway, hesitated at the top of the stairs and right foot first, stepped down and repeated the same with the left foot. He did this all the way down the stairs, with the prints and my memory of an event I don't remember, getting lighter and lighter.

Goose Island Brewery!

Today I'm headed to Chicago to visit Goose Island Brewery. If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited; what's better than good beer, Chicago, and three of my favorite friends? We are all set up to tour the brewery and afterward, of course, tastings! Luckily for my friend who has wheat allergies, they also brew ginger ale, root beer, and cream soda.

That brings me to my current brewing situation. We finally tasted our double-hopped IPA (that was made in the ol' moonshine keg this summer!) and it was out of this world. (the Belgian Blanc was sadly, not) My brother couldn't believe that we had actually made this amber-colored ale and said that he not only wanted two cases, but wanted to turn the farm into an organic brewery. He envisions that all the grains and hops would be grown on the property and we would use unfiltered well water. Ahhh... what a dream. He has another agenda; he likes the idea of serving family beers at his bar in his new house.

This fall I also planted a few grape vines. Although I don't want to claim that I am a wine expert or even know anything about wine, I'd like to know how it's made. I don't want to read in books, but rather plant the vines, wait a few years, harvest the grapes and go from there.

Next on tap (for tomorrow's brewing schedule) will be another IPA... although this one is a reserve and the hop schedule is much more interesting: Mt. Hood and Tetnanger, with twice as much brewer's yeast, and a bit more brewer's sugar. Should prove to be a great winter ale as well as high alcohol content.

Winchester Street Monday Mornings

A leaf print in the sidewalk
separated by cracks
to keep from freezing but
was soft at one time.
cassette tape pulled out
and filters seem like leaves
on the side
cold dust and bits of plastic trying,
to figure out what they used to be
looking for salvage.

curb your dog.
one 6-pointed meets fifty 5-pointed.
perfectly manicured green grass had to
pay for that sign in your lawn.
you dug up the tree in mid-summer’s nights dream
and I told you it would die,
not the right time,
poor withered lace-leaf red maple.
I got to look down when you come.

watering can in hand,
pants are too high and gut is too big.
you know they are nice
everyone knows they are the nicest on Winchester.
of course the buyers will love the color yellow,
new windows, new sod, new porch,
new-old house.
on the right the slope is high-
some can’t deal,
using a penetrating vine that abuses.
barrel of rock salt and a funeral procession no,
that was Sunday morning.

10/12/2006

Hay bales- the Moroccan way

While driving (or rather, riding) on the way to Rabat from Marrakech, Morocco I saw many small farms beside the highway. The ride is about 2.5 hours long, and for the most part, the scenery is rural. Out my window I saw several groups of animals and to my surprise, they were ALWAYS guarded by a shepherd. Some cows, some goats, some chickens, and a lot of sheep- regardless of the animal, a boy or man was always found nearby. Usually holding a stick, or a gardening tool of some kind, the shepherd looked deep in thought sitting on a rock, or, when about to rain, circling the group of animals. All of the animals were quite dirty- none of Mary's little lambs around, but instead, dingy sheep. Also, in the middle of these fields were small mud-brick shanties where, I presume the shepherd kept supplies for lunch and the animals, or spent lonely nights.

The fields are not what I am used to in Indiana. I mean, they host the typical crops, hay, alfalfa, beans and even, to my surprise, corn! But, the shape of the fields is truly bizarre. No, squares or rectangles or even circles for that matter, but strange trapezoidal shapes which appear to have no logic behind them. When asking my own native Moroccan, he told me that the government has jurisdiction over the property and has historically split it up again and again for years. The result: very strange scraps of land for the farmers.

Another amazing sight was the hay bale "buildings." This I found to be a truly impressive feat without the help of a crane or other hi-tech building equipment. The bales are the traditional square bales of my childhood- solid (heavy) rectangular "bricks" held together with baler twine which serve a second purpose as "handles" to move the bales around. However, these bales were not stored in barns like I am used to, but compactly stacked in building formations. The photo above is not too great as it was (obviously) taken from the window of the car. But, in it you can see a "building" constructed solely of hay bales. This one looks like a pole barn, but there were others with rounded, or domed, ceilings too! The bales were so tightly put together that nothing larger than a mouse could penetrate the stack. I wonder how the rain we received yesterday and today is affecting the hay because as any farmer knows, the struggle with storing hay is preventing mold and mildew. You can also see that in the photo there is a silo and other typical farming equipment/buildings, yet the Moroccan farmer stores hay in an artful way.

Holy Tomatillos!

Last week I picked 20 pounds of tomatillos from our garden. Tomatillos are small, firm, green tomatoes with a paper husk. The tomatillo plant is similar to that of a standard tomato we are used to; it is from the night shade family and typically requires some kind of cage or trellis for the weak vine to rely on. We have three different cultivars of tomatillos growing this year. Some of them had purple-ish husks. The fruit is slightly crunchy, low in acid and high in pectin. This makes for great tasting salsa with perfect consistency! When I picked them they easily plucked off the vine. When picking tomatillos, you want to give them a little squeeze while still on the vine to make sure that the fruit has filled in the husk. Don't pick them before they are bursting out of this translucent paper wrapper!

When picking (and later when husking) the tomatillos are sticky. I found this sticky-ness to be almost oily, which was to me, a unique experience. While husking, I ate a few whole-- sweet and crunchy like an apple, slightly acidic like a tomato. Then, I simply quartered the larger ones (halving the smaller ones) and placed them in roasting pans. I baked them in the oven at 350 degress for an hour and a half. As the tomatillos were roasting, I threw three poblano, three anneheim, two serrano, and one jalepeno chile pepper on the grill. I just blackened their skins then let them sweat out in a ziploc bag. After they were cooled, I peeled the blackened skins off and took the seeds and stems out. I also sauteed 10 small white onions and six cloves of chopped garlic until the onions were soft and translucent. I drained the tomatillos of any excess water they let out while roasting and threw them, the roasted peppers, the onion and garlic mixture (both from our garden), three cups of chopped fresh cilantro (also from our garden) the juice of three limes, a half cup of white vinegar and some sea salt to taste into the blender.

Now, my favorite part-- canning! I washed and prepared lids for 10 pint jars and filled them almost to the top with my wonderfully green salsa. Then, after dipping in a water bath for 30 minutes, they sealed themselves closed on the kitchen counter while cooling off. Granted there were only 10 jars, but excitingly, my own tomatillo salsa sold out at the farmer's market in Dublin, OH. It's best on plain old tortilla chips, but I also found it very tasty as a tapanade for baked cod or salmon.

The 'Ol Moonshine Keg

So lately I've been into home brewing. I want to brew with my own, homegrown, hops next year, but this year, I will stick to the hopped malt syrups. Well, Younes and I bought a cheap-o plastic brewing kit at CVS the day after Christmas- everything was on sale. I'm brewing a belgian blanc in that 2 gallon keg. However, it's this 6 gallon keg pictured here that I want to bring to your attention.

This 6 gallon keg was in the basement at the farm for over 30 years. I remember, in highschool, going down to the basement and daring my friends to drink what I called, "moonshine." Nobody knew what was in the keg. It was a brownish color, smelled like some sort of alcohol and tasted gross. It was only last week that the keg was unearthed, dusted off, and drained. As I began to drain it I felt sad that 6 gallons of "liquid" were going to waste. I had to save some of it. What if it's aged and worth something now? What if it's some kind of amazing liquor that would go great with lamb?

Needless to say, I put a glass under the tap and saved some. It was truly murky. I looked at it. Remembered the days I willingly drank the stuff in highschool and took a sip. The best way to describe it was 50% rubbing alcohol and 50% tannin aftertaste. Ugh. There must be a better way to remember this keg and how it did its job for over 30 years with no complaints. So I cleaned and sanitized it and dressed it to the nines with a triple-hopped IPA. Let's see if this batch lasts as long as the 'ol moonshine.