Wednesday, January 31, 2007
OK, can anyone explain to me why in a college town (a Big 10 school town, nonetheless), we don't have a White Castle or a Denny's? What the hell is wrong with this area that neither of those are here. And even better and tastier, some really needs to open up a Chik-Fil-A, for crying out loud. Those sandwiches and waffle fries are about the best thing on earth.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Who knew the east coast job search would be the easiest part of everything that's going on? I have had three phone interviews, two of which I now have face to face meetings for (one early next week, the other the week after). I also have another phone interview this coming Friday for a fourth school. I think I have a good shot at both of the two I have coming up in person, and in particular I think I have a particularly excellent shot at one of the two from the language they have been using with me. I think I'd be quite happy in either area (Williamsburg, VA or Wilmington, NC) and really hope I end up with offers from both so I can enjoy sitting down and figuring out what's best for us in terms of salary, living area, etc. If that happens, and it's looking positive that it could work that way, then really it's a win-win situation since we knew we'd be happy in either place. Either way, I'm nervous about the plane ride this weekend, but really looking forward to warmer temperatures (it's supposed to be in the mid-50s there while I'm there to interview!). Warmer climates, close mountains, very little snow, beach access, no corn, here we come!
Monday, January 22, 2007
Monday Morning Musings
If you forget in your Monday pre-coffee morning haze that it snowed a bunch the day before and go out in your heels to start your car, you may need to change into boots instead so you don't get snow inside your shoes and pant legs. Please note that you will also end up with wet pants if you prefer heels with longer pants instead of flats and shorter pants.
When you have to travel in two weeks for an interview far, far away, you may actually be more frightened and stressed about the flight than you are about the interview, particularly if you haven't set foot on a plane in about ten years and your OCD and Type A personality mean that flying is the ultimate in "not being in control" of a situation.
Some of us REALLY dislike whiny, egotistic quarterbacks who think it's all about them and the rest of the team is irrelevant. Some of us really hope that certain people whose last name start with U and end in R and whose team is represented by a giant brown mammal put a real hurting on these whiny QBs in two weeks.
Perhaps if certain people could stop stuffing their face with everything they can get their hands on and drag ass to the gym more than a couple days a week, those same people may find that their entire wardrobe of clothes that doesn't currently fit will be able to be worn again.
Movies watched this weekend: An American Haunting, The Notorious Bettie Page, Hard Candy.
That is all.
When you have to travel in two weeks for an interview far, far away, you may actually be more frightened and stressed about the flight than you are about the interview, particularly if you haven't set foot on a plane in about ten years and your OCD and Type A personality mean that flying is the ultimate in "not being in control" of a situation.
Some of us REALLY dislike whiny, egotistic quarterbacks who think it's all about them and the rest of the team is irrelevant. Some of us really hope that certain people whose last name start with U and end in R and whose team is represented by a giant brown mammal put a real hurting on these whiny QBs in two weeks.
Perhaps if certain people could stop stuffing their face with everything they can get their hands on and drag ass to the gym more than a couple days a week, those same people may find that their entire wardrobe of clothes that doesn't currently fit will be able to be worn again.
Movies watched this weekend: An American Haunting, The Notorious Bettie Page, Hard Candy.
That is all.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
East Coast Dreamin'
It's starting to look more and more like we'll be escaping this frozen tundra sometime in the near future after all! I have my second and third phone interviews this week for places on the east coast and now my first face to face interview for the phone interview I did last week.
Boomshakalaka!
Boomshakalaka!
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Radio Maria's Tapas Bar
Last night we took the opportunity to head to the new Radio Maria tapas bar before our dinner at Radio Maria proper. The restaurant has long been one of favorites in the area for a nice meal, before we lived here actually since we came from Bloomington for special occasions to eat there prior to becoming CU residents. We've seen a lot of change in the place in the 6-7 years we've been eating there, most notably changes in the kitchen that have lead to a wonderful menu, though far less diverse and more static than it was originally.
No changes, however, seem to be bigger than the tapas bar opened adjacent to Radio Maria's by the same owner. Joined by a door much like the new addition across the street at Blind Pig, patrons are now notified that the entrance is through the tapas bar, instead of around the corner where it used to be.
We thought we'd head to our reservations for dinner about an hour early and see how the new bar was, and perhaps order a couple tapas for appetizers to see the menu. We sat at the bar, entering shortly after 6:30 and found plenty of empty seats. There are big, comfy looking booths, some random tall tables and then the bar, which is a monstrously long, and to be honest, annoying blue lighted contraption. All along the walls behind the bar are colored light boxes, giving the air that the place really, really wants to bring a peace of Chicago metro to our little town. Overall, it's a little overwhelming and doesn't quite seem to fit with either the old Radio Maria area (ecclectic in it's own right, but in a very low key way) or with the rest of downtown Champaign for that matter.
We asked for drink menus and the beer and wine selection rivals the places in town known for their vast and varied choices. There were approximately 20-25 beers on tap, vended out from a silver set of taps in the center of the bar area. It's a round vending-like thing with bunches and bunches of little black taps that all look the same. For a "beerie", I wasn't big on the absense of a more traditional looking tap line complete with beer taps from around the world. We learned that each tap is numbered, keeping them identifiable.
We waited some time for even an offer of a menu for tapas, trying hard to catch the eye of the plethora of bar staff the whole time. They all appeared to be fairly green and the place had obviously opened recently (the bar maid I talked to indicated it opened last Thursday and that they had been very busy Friday night). As such, more attention was being paid to when the lighting should be turned lower for ambiance, and how to make an appropriate drink than to people actually sitting at the bar from what we could tell. We watched one server pour random shots without measuring at all, while another would measure carefully to mix, pour and find the liquid far short of the top of the glass, then filling it the rest of the way with ice to compensate (which was already in the glass before). We were also told that the owner had gone out of his way to only hire the best of the best for staff. That said, we didn't recognize a single face behind the bar from the local scene.
When we were finally able to procure tapas menus, we found many things that sounded good on them, though much of it was obvious recycling from the Radio Maria's menus over the years. After sorting through paellas, plantain chips, fried avocado wedge, and other such offerings we finally settled on two items, lamb skewers and bleu cheese and data croquettes. Perhaps I didn't read the menu close enough, but I was surprised when the "lamb skewers" came to find they were essentially two meatballs of ground lamb (a nice way to lengthen meats when you can mix other things in with it) stuck with oversized toothpicks through them. Somewhat dry and overcooked, they were just okay and the sauce that came beneath them, a curried type deal, was a nice accompaniment. The croquettes were heavy on the bleu cheese with just enough date mixed in to give a slightly sweet taste to it, a nice combination. They appeared to have been coated in panko-type breading, which was a nice flaky touch. They were served with "tomato chips", which appeared to be sundried tomatoes perhaps warmed in the oven and some broken up toasted pita. While we ordered with a full half hour prior to our reservations, our food took almost 25 minutes to come out with the bar about three-quarters full of patrons, leaving us stuffing it in to hurry and make our table instead of being able to enjoy and taste with time.
The woman at the table behind me had ordered at some point the scallop tapas, one that had really appealed to me. Scallops are a true kitchen test for restaurants, so easy to overcook, so difficult to obtain good ones in this area. With my back to her, I was able to quickly realize she had ordered the scallops because of the overwhelming fishy smell that suddenly seemed to take over the area. While seafood is fishy, scallops are one of the least so (or should be) and the scent was enough to tell me I had been wise in avoiding such an iffy choice that night.
Overall, I'm not sure we'll go to the tapas bar again, through we will certainly return to Radio Maria. The ambiance was a little over the top, the crowd was more than a little too yuppie (or yerpie, as we said last night, young rural professionals), the bar itself was physically too much to take in and enjoy looking at. The beer selection was the best thing it had going for it, and it was outstanding, but when you can find that in at least two other places in town with much more low key environments, it's not a true selling point. This place may certainly appeal to people who feel the need to go to a place that reminds them of a bigger city than CU, but for us folk who like the quieter, darker and warmer places where we can still get a beer worthy of the beer snob, I'd say we're happier at Blind Pig or Crane Alley.
No changes, however, seem to be bigger than the tapas bar opened adjacent to Radio Maria's by the same owner. Joined by a door much like the new addition across the street at Blind Pig, patrons are now notified that the entrance is through the tapas bar, instead of around the corner where it used to be.
We thought we'd head to our reservations for dinner about an hour early and see how the new bar was, and perhaps order a couple tapas for appetizers to see the menu. We sat at the bar, entering shortly after 6:30 and found plenty of empty seats. There are big, comfy looking booths, some random tall tables and then the bar, which is a monstrously long, and to be honest, annoying blue lighted contraption. All along the walls behind the bar are colored light boxes, giving the air that the place really, really wants to bring a peace of Chicago metro to our little town. Overall, it's a little overwhelming and doesn't quite seem to fit with either the old Radio Maria area (ecclectic in it's own right, but in a very low key way) or with the rest of downtown Champaign for that matter.
We asked for drink menus and the beer and wine selection rivals the places in town known for their vast and varied choices. There were approximately 20-25 beers on tap, vended out from a silver set of taps in the center of the bar area. It's a round vending-like thing with bunches and bunches of little black taps that all look the same. For a "beerie", I wasn't big on the absense of a more traditional looking tap line complete with beer taps from around the world. We learned that each tap is numbered, keeping them identifiable.
We waited some time for even an offer of a menu for tapas, trying hard to catch the eye of the plethora of bar staff the whole time. They all appeared to be fairly green and the place had obviously opened recently (the bar maid I talked to indicated it opened last Thursday and that they had been very busy Friday night). As such, more attention was being paid to when the lighting should be turned lower for ambiance, and how to make an appropriate drink than to people actually sitting at the bar from what we could tell. We watched one server pour random shots without measuring at all, while another would measure carefully to mix, pour and find the liquid far short of the top of the glass, then filling it the rest of the way with ice to compensate (which was already in the glass before). We were also told that the owner had gone out of his way to only hire the best of the best for staff. That said, we didn't recognize a single face behind the bar from the local scene.
When we were finally able to procure tapas menus, we found many things that sounded good on them, though much of it was obvious recycling from the Radio Maria's menus over the years. After sorting through paellas, plantain chips, fried avocado wedge, and other such offerings we finally settled on two items, lamb skewers and bleu cheese and data croquettes. Perhaps I didn't read the menu close enough, but I was surprised when the "lamb skewers" came to find they were essentially two meatballs of ground lamb (a nice way to lengthen meats when you can mix other things in with it) stuck with oversized toothpicks through them. Somewhat dry and overcooked, they were just okay and the sauce that came beneath them, a curried type deal, was a nice accompaniment. The croquettes were heavy on the bleu cheese with just enough date mixed in to give a slightly sweet taste to it, a nice combination. They appeared to have been coated in panko-type breading, which was a nice flaky touch. They were served with "tomato chips", which appeared to be sundried tomatoes perhaps warmed in the oven and some broken up toasted pita. While we ordered with a full half hour prior to our reservations, our food took almost 25 minutes to come out with the bar about three-quarters full of patrons, leaving us stuffing it in to hurry and make our table instead of being able to enjoy and taste with time.
The woman at the table behind me had ordered at some point the scallop tapas, one that had really appealed to me. Scallops are a true kitchen test for restaurants, so easy to overcook, so difficult to obtain good ones in this area. With my back to her, I was able to quickly realize she had ordered the scallops because of the overwhelming fishy smell that suddenly seemed to take over the area. While seafood is fishy, scallops are one of the least so (or should be) and the scent was enough to tell me I had been wise in avoiding such an iffy choice that night.
Overall, I'm not sure we'll go to the tapas bar again, through we will certainly return to Radio Maria. The ambiance was a little over the top, the crowd was more than a little too yuppie (or yerpie, as we said last night, young rural professionals), the bar itself was physically too much to take in and enjoy looking at. The beer selection was the best thing it had going for it, and it was outstanding, but when you can find that in at least two other places in town with much more low key environments, it's not a true selling point. This place may certainly appeal to people who feel the need to go to a place that reminds them of a bigger city than CU, but for us folk who like the quieter, darker and warmer places where we can still get a beer worthy of the beer snob, I'd say we're happier at Blind Pig or Crane Alley.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Ode to Holiday Ass
Ode to Holiday Ass
Oh badonkadonkdonk of which I once garnered endless infatuation for from many persons of the male persuation, how could thou betray me so?
Just because I love food and spirits in a manner unbecoming of a lady, thou hast opted to fill out every piece of clothing I have in my possession in an, at best, unflattering manner and at worst, just plain unzipperable.
Have I really been so unfair that thou needed to try and run away from me, creating any escape hatch possible through my clothes, be it pocket edges, muffin top or ass crack?
I see that I underestimated your ability to torture me. Rest assured I will not make this same mistake again. OK, that's untrue, I certainly will.
But for this time, on this day, I am going to attempt to reign you back in, shrink you in size and stuff you back where you belong, comfortably in pants of a normal size and nature without a large baggy sweater overhanging your every transgression.
Victory will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.
Oh badonkadonkdonk of which I once garnered endless infatuation for from many persons of the male persuation, how could thou betray me so?
Just because I love food and spirits in a manner unbecoming of a lady, thou hast opted to fill out every piece of clothing I have in my possession in an, at best, unflattering manner and at worst, just plain unzipperable.
Have I really been so unfair that thou needed to try and run away from me, creating any escape hatch possible through my clothes, be it pocket edges, muffin top or ass crack?
I see that I underestimated your ability to torture me. Rest assured I will not make this same mistake again. OK, that's untrue, I certainly will.
But for this time, on this day, I am going to attempt to reign you back in, shrink you in size and stuff you back where you belong, comfortably in pants of a normal size and nature without a large baggy sweater overhanging your every transgression.
Victory will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.
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