Text 11573, 160 rader
Skriven 2008-08-05 07:28:00 av Michael Loo
Ärende: to picnic 720
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It's a peculiar custom, this open casket thing. It does
give people a more graphic, if you will, way to say goodbye,
but I find it unnecessary. Anyhow, Ellen and Joel came to
the wake with me; a couple of the other musicians also
showed up. The family - Father Oshagan's sister Alice and
brother-in-law and his cousin Nancy were there to receive
condolences after we filed past the casket. We didn't stick
around for the service but instead went home and had dinner
and got drunk. On the way we went by Whole Foods to get some
stuff; saw a half watermelon, which looked as though it might
go well after dinner on a hard day, but I weighed it, and it
would have cost $4.50 or so, and whole watermelons were on
sale for $4.99. So we got a whole one; it wasn't so good as
the one that Dave had gotten earlier.

Next day. Got up bright and early for the 10:00 funeral mass,
which lasted until 12:30. As a result, Joel and I decided not
to go to the interment; instead, we went to Rubin's in Brookline,
not exactly on the way to the airport, not exactly not: I had a
Roumanian pastrami sandwich, which was pretty decent though thin
cut and rather lean (I prefer hand-cut and extra fat); Joel had
a combo of some kind. Dr. Brown's black cherry soda to wash down,
then it was off to Logan. Security was quick and deferential,
and I had an hour to kill at the Club before going off to the
dungeon for boarding (and boarding was 15 min late).

0731 US4960 BOS SYR 1520 1705 CRJ 7A

The commuter gates at Boston are not unlike those at most
of the airports I've seen - insufficient seating, lighting,
and airflow. I don't see why the airlines don't realize
that the Kettles do provide in aggregate a fair amount of
dosh despite their not flying very often, and it shouldn't
be a great leap of faith to provide them with at least a
tolerable place to hang out before their flight. I've flown
commuter flights from hubs on American, Continental, Delta,
Northwest, United, and US Air recently, and other than Delta
in Cincinnati, the airport experience has been an ugly one.

This was a thoroughly nasty flight owing to the aircraft
being unbelievably hot on the tarmac and quite warm
even in the air. That being that, I slept through it and
was pleased to find that despite our taking off a little
late, we landed a little early. Row 7 does have a fair
amount of extra legroom, but the emergency exit door
doesn't provide an armrest.

Burt and Shirley were there to greet me, and we were shortly
on our way southward on I-81. Turned left at Binghamton and
landed at Janis's after dumping our traps off at the B&B.
Linda, the innkeeper, was welcoming in a talkative way, and
we arrived a bit later than we'd promised over the phone.

Present:
Ron and Janis Kracht
Dale and Gail Shipp
Stephen and Ruth Haffly
Dave Drum and Georgia Applegate
Burt and Shirley and me

We chatted a while and then caravaned to a Chinese place that
the Krachts had wanted to show us.

Moon Star is in Endicott, west of Johnson City, west of
Binghamton, which is a fairly good ways off, so I thought, okay,
I hope it's better than I can do. The verdict: about as good
as I can do and not that much more expensive. It's a small
place on the highway, not too promising looking, but as we saw,
appearances can be deceiving. They couldn't really accommodate
a party of 11, so we split off into a booth of 4 (the Shipps
and the Hafflys) and a round table with the rest of us. The
decor was spartan. The help was young-studently, pleasant,
but a little spacy at times. There are two menus, an American
Chinese one and a Chinese Chinese one. We got most of our stuff
off the Chinese one.

Our table had either hot tea or ice water depending on who was
feeling yin or yang at the time ... I asked what was on draft,
and the waitress sort of went huh, what's that, and I said, oh,
if you don't know, the answer is no. Eventually we communicated
that what I wanted was beer, but they don't serve alcohol, so
I said, I'll have whatever you have that has beer in the name.
So I had a glass (a beer glass with a beer logo on it) of Barq's.

Both tables ordered dumplings - the other one ordered steamed; we
got fried. These were excellent, the wrappers delicate, the
filling just savory enough. Halfway, we switched platters, so
everyone got to taste both kinds. The consensus at our table was
that fried has more things going on and therefore is preferable.

Krab and fish maw soup, under the name crabmeat and fish belly
soup, was quite good, but I was a hair irritated as the crab
was fake, and the price would have been justified only by real.

Deep-fried noodles with duck sauce (the stereotypical free
appetizer at Chinese-American restaurants) were fresher than
average and less greasy than average. Georgia asked for hot
mustard, and the waitress said "of course"; but it never came,
even after another request the only really unsatisfactory aspect
of the meal other than the fake crab.

We asked for kung pao chicken, and she asked me "Chinese or
American," and I answered appropriately; as a result, all
the dishes came out with no punches pulled. Very good, very
authentic, spicy and hot but not dangerously so: this
came out a big mound of chicken dice and peanuts and hot
peppers in the correct brown sauce, nothing else. Delicious.

With the double-cooked pork I was in heaven, as it was made
the proper way with pork belly, and it was almost as hot as
I would have made it myself. As usual for this genre of dish,
I prefer the meat done a little more, so the skin is soft and
luxuriously gooey and the fat almost meltihg by itself; here,
the meat was done just a hair less, so that it could more easily
be cut into strips to be further cooked.

Mee fun with pork was standard, simple, and pretty good. It is
comfort food for Burt, that's why we ordered it. Thin noodles,
wok seared, with pork shreds and scallions.

Salt-pepper shrimp were headless and a tad salty, both minor
drawbacks; on the other hand, the shrimp were fresh and well
hotted with sliced Serranos and nicely cooked, and there were
a lot of them, so we sent one for each to the other table.

Pork and squid in XO sauce was pretty standard; tasty but not
astonishing. What's XO sauce? It's a brownish sauce flavored
with peppers and also dried scallops, which are quite expensive.
The term XO is said to come from the brandy designation and is
meant to denote "costly and luxurious." This was not particularly
costly or luxurious, but it was good.

Three-flavor chicken was an order from the other table, but there
was extra, so we got to taste it. It is not clear what the three
flavors are, as I detected soy, garlic, ginger, coriander, and
of course chicken thighs.

The other table also had beef with tomatoes, which our table
didn't try.

Rice, which comes with at this place, didn't appear until near
the end of the meal. I had it boxed up to go.

The cost was $15 a head for our table, but we'd ordered some of
the higher-end dishes on the menu.

Had a nice Coal Porter (Atlantic Brewing, Portland and Bar Harbor)
back at Janis's to make up for the lack of beer at the restaurant.
It has dark roast malty coffeeish notes, a fair amount of hops,
and is just a hair or two sweeter than I like. Janis and Ron drink
their beer at ambient temperature, which is good for the beer aroma
but not so good for the quenching aspect, but this was pretty
satisfying, plus there weren't any off notes that warmth tends to
accentuate.

It was fairly late, and we were fairly tired, so we said goodbye
to everyone and toddled the 5 miles back north to the B&B.

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