Living on liquids

Recently I've been trying to remember the last meal I ate.

Actually ate, I mean. With the silverware and the plate and the chewing. But I can't.

There are vague memories: juicy steak frites at Saloon; a ricotta-and-raspberry jam crêpe from Mr. Crêpe; take-out pizza from Eat at Jumbo's. The latter I remember because the sausage was too spicy for my tongue, already tenderized by the double-punch of chemo and radiation.

At some point there will have been a meal that I couldn't finish, because moving anything around my mouth was too painful to handle. And then I switched to a liquid diet.

That was, let's see ... six weeks ago? Hard to pinpoint, but certainly it was at least three or four weeks into radiation, and I had my last treatment a month ago last week. So maybe more than that.

These days, a typical menu looks like this:

Breakfast
Fresh-fruit shake with protein powder
Smoothie of oatmeal or Weetabix, yogurt, ice cream, coffee. No, I mean all at once. In the smoothie.



This isn't too bad, actually; I add spices (cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon), which helps. The yogurt is for extra protein, and the ice cream boosts calories.

Lunch
The Sardini (with apologies to Dr. Zoidberg)



This is pretty much exactly like a Martini, except you use cucumber instead of vermouth and a whole can of skinless, boneless sardines in olive oil instead of gin. And you add Greek yogurt. Huge protein punch.

Dinner
Soup, probably



You'd think there'd be endless variety here, but no: I still need to keep things fairly bland. I can't do anything spicy or acidic — tomatoes are painful, as is a surfeit of leeks or peppers. Smooth is better than lumpy, as anything fibrous is difficult (corn; beans that shed their outer layers). This basically leaves me with root veggies (sometimes roasted), well-cooked greens, cheese sauces.

Now and again I go bigger. There have been fish chowders and slow-cooked beef short ribs. Tonight is a chicken and eggplant stew, vaguely North African but without the spice, of course. Cooked long enough, puréed well enough, they make a nice change from squash soup, though they're still harder to eat.

The whole thing is becoming tedious.

Plus, it's changing my attitude toward food in general. I can still see it and smell it, of course, but the taste aspect — and that includes the anticipatory pleasure, looking forward to the taste — isn't there any more. So now I regard a beautifully plated charcuterie selection in much the same way as a flower arrangement: Yes, it looks lovely, and smells wonderful. And that's as far as it goes.

What's more, I no longer distinguish between types of food. I have as much use/need for a lemon meringue pie as for a plate of raw pink chicken breasts. I've never liked mushrooms, but right now they're no different than a fresh orange or a bowl of pistachios or a bar of chocolate.

I know I shouldn't complain. There are people who have been through worse than this; people who have lost all ability to eat, who will spend the rest of their lives getting nutrition through a tube in their stomachs. My condition is temporary, and should clear up in a few more weeks.

Still.

I have visions of the first proper food I want to eat. A cheese sandwich: good white bread, lots of butter, a salty Cheddar. When I described it to my dad, he said, "You mean where you take a bite and there are teeth marks in the bread and the butter and the cheese?"

Yes. That. Exactly that. I dream about it.

I guess I haven't given up on food completely.

To scotch an egg

I'm not a stickler for tradition. Okay, well maybe a little, especially when it comes to adherence to proper grammar and basic traffic rules (don't. Get me started).

But when it comes to food, I love creativity. I love the idea of subverting expectations and presenting standard dishes in new ways. That's part of the reason our Madrid lunch at Club Allard is in my Top Ten Meals Evar; every dish took straightforward concepts and rebuilt them in unexpected ways — like the egg-that-wasn't for dessert.



But now I feel the need to speak up. And as it happens, the subject is eggs.

Scotch eggs, to be precise.

See, I grew up with Scotch eggs. (That sounds like they raised me, like wolves, but that's not true; the pork pies did most of that work.) And I know what they are: Boiled eggs, wrapped in pork sausage meat, breaded, deep-fried.

Like this.



Though frankly, even that parsley garnish is improper.

In England, you can get them in chain supermarkets and village butchers and motorway service stations. They're great for picnics and quick lunches. I've even seen them served at a wedding (though to be fair, it was the sort of reception where the drink for the toast was whiskey for the gents and sherry for the ladies. I, of course, demanded the manly option).

So what's my beef now?

Oh, just this:

Chorizo Scotch eggs with tortilla chips

Kabocha squash Scotch eggs

Emeril's "kicked up" Scotch eggs with Creole seasoning

You'd think I'd be happy, right? Finally, the outdated view that British food is uniformly awful — everything overcooked and under-seasoned — is disappearing, and humble dishes like the Scotch egg are enjoying a moment in the sun.

And yet ...

I think it's just that my idea of the Scotch egg is very particular, and deeply rooted in nostalgia. I know, clearly, unhesitatingly, how it should taste: tiny breadcrumbs gritty on your fingertips, dry and yet leaving a faint greasy residue; textures changing as you bite through breading, then densely packed meat, then smooth, squeaky egg white, then soft yolk; peppery sausage contrasting with the clean purity of the egg.

Once you start experimenting with squash and spices, you're messing with my childhood.

This may seem a hypocritical rant, given that I'll jump to order Scotch eggs at any bar that offers them. The example above is from the Salt hill pub in Lebanon, NH (where they were listed as "Celtic eggs"). Here's the version from New York's Jones Wood Foundry, which also does a solid steak and kidney pie and possibly the best chips I've had in this whole country.



But it bugs me that compromise is necessary: Sure, we'll take your awful limey snacks, but we'll mess with them to make them more acceptable to our audiences. Hey, we do it all the time with TV shows!

I guess I should be happy that another staple of UK cuisine is now somewhat available over here. Maybe it's part of a very very (very) slow British invasion? Who knows what's next: pork pie? Steak and kidney pudding with suet pastry? Real proper fruit cake?

Ha ha! Don't think so!

Momofuku Ko-My-God

We just celebrated our fifteenth anniversary. FIFTEEN. WHAT?? It's crazy that I've spent almost one-third of my life married to The Boy, but there you go. We're still having fun, even during the medical crappiness of the last couple of years.

So how to mark the event? We left it kind of late to do anything big, partly because I was due to start the new ritual of weekly chemo and twice-a-day radiation and we didn't know how I'd feel. As it turned out, I was doing okay, so with just over a week to go, we found a hotel in New York and booked train tickets for the following weekend.

The big question, of course: Where to eat?

Scoping around for something new, I checked in with our friend Eric, who a) reminded us that he and his wife had recently had a fab meal at Momofuku Ko and b) pointed out that reservations for our Saturday night would open up the following day.

Okay, sold.

In theory, at least.

The deal with Ko is that they have 12 seats — not tables, seats — which become available ten days ahead at 10am. The trick is to be online at 9:58am and hit "refresh" constantly.

So I was. Click, click, click. Refresh, refresh, refresh. One minute to go ... 9:59:48 ... click ...

Ten o'clock. Click.

No availability.

WHAT??

Yep, them's the breaks. Luckily, I also knew to keep clicking; people cancel, spaces open up. And lo, after only another 30 minutes of hitting "refresh," I saw an opening. Click. Got it.

(And then another couple of heart-pounding, adrenaline-filled minutes where I had to fill in contact details and give a credit card number while a timer counted down 120 seconds. Aaagh, the number's wrong! Aagh, I can't spell my own name! This, it seems, is why I'm not cut out for the bomb squad.)

So, after a fun day in Manhattan, including a lovely pub lunch at Jones Wood Foundry (bangers and mash! Steak and kidney pie! Listening to New Yorkers concerned about the contents of toad in the hole!) and a romantic walk through a rainy, misty, almost-deserted Central Park, we headed to the East Village.

Okay, a disclaimer now: Ko is known for discouraging photography. As the website puts it:

may i take pictures?
no.

Which would hurt less if I hadn't found 600+ Ko photos on Flickr.

But whatevs. No lovely food shots here, but a few observations to give you a sense of the experience.

The room is long and narrow, and dominated by a counter running down the middle. On one side are 12 stools; on the other, three guys with sharp knives and a lot of stainless steel.

The music is eclectic — Wilco, Pink Floyd, NWA ("it's the big boss man's iPod," we're told) — though loud; we have to shout to communicate allergies to the staff, and we don't always hear all the details of each dish as they're presented.

That, combined with the fear of being yelled at for pulling out a phone, means we don't take notes. And it's hard to remember all ten courses plus snacky extras.

Still, there was:

Light-as-air chicharrón dusted with huitlacoche;
Melty Spanish mackerel contrasted with pickled shallots and blood orange;
Tiny, delicate shrimp with a texture I can only describe as creamy, something I've never encountered before;
A rich potato chowder with soft littleneck clams and andouille (just outside my current capacity for spicy food, but still fabulous);
Venison tartare, served under sunchoke and Brussels sprout leaves and over fermented black beans. No, shut up, it was insane. The venison was like maguro in texture, the beans added a deeper meaty angle, the leaves gave a crunchy foil to the soft flesh. The only thing even more better was the egg.

Ohhh, the egg. Soft-boiled, smoked, served with a generous spoonful of caviar on top of buttered onions. Simple, right? Oh look, here's a recipe. And a better picture.

The other dish often cited in discussions of Ko is the lychees with Riesling geleé topped with chilled, shaved foie. It's like a rich, grown-up, sophisticated sundae. Sadly, by the time it appears for us, I'm dragging — it's well past my bedtime — so I can't give it the full attention it deserves.

And I hardly touch the last savory course, a tender piece of duck with baby turnip and berries. Which makes me feel bad, especially as the poor guy firing up the first batch accidentally set the whole pan alight and had to start over.

Oh, a word on the chefs. There are some jobs I'm just not cut out for: teacher, nurse, anything in sales. Add to that: Cooking in a tiny restaurant where you're almost nose-to-nose with the diners. These guys had an incredible Zen-like approach, calmly, methodically prepping and plating, slicing translucent slivers of fish, using tweezers to pick out the perfect microgreen garnishes, trimming meat down to its tastiest essence, while dealing with distracting customer chit-chat. I'd last ten minutes before I was throwing plates across the room.

Desserts were lovely — a coconut-lime sorbet with meringue and banana and a sour-orange sorbet with panna cotta, Earl Grey and caramel — but seemingly not as creative as the mains. Which reminded us of dinner at Rosanjin, in which a dinner of dishes in a formal, traditional Japanese style concluded with ... cheesecake and strawberry ice cream. So maybe it's a thing.

After about two and a half hours, we rolled out, tired and full and happy. Ko goes in our Top Ten Meals of All Time.

And now I'm back to sucking scrambled eggs and milkshakes. At least I still have tastebuds, for now. Once they're gone, I'll entertain myself with looking at photos of dinner at Ko.

Other people's photos, anyway.

I can makes cheez?

Wait - I seriously haven't posted since NOVEMBER? Where have I been??

(Short answer: Chicago, New York, England, Wales and Tampa. Possible posts to come on some of those. Though if I haven't managed anything yet ...)

The latest cancer treatment news is that I start a new round of radiation tomorrow. A second set of radiation, you say? Isn't that risky and stuff? Well, yes, but it's that or live on chemo until the chemo stops working. So.

Because I know the next few months are going to be Not Fun, The Boy and I have been trying to fit in as many happy things as possible. A small one, but something we've always wanted to try, was making cheese. So for Christmas I got him a mozzarella-making kit from Roaring Brook Dairy.

It came with a small block of rennet; baggies of cheese salt (which has no iodine) and citric acid; a small thermometer; and a pair of rubber gloves.



"All you need," it said, "is one gallon of milk!"

So, cool. Milk acquired and decanted into the Dutch oven. In other news, we learned we had a one-gallon Dutch oven. Phew!



Once the temperature reached 85 degrees, we added the citric acid. At 100 degrees we added the rennet. Suddenly, we had primordial cheese.



After a ten minute rest (for us and the cheese) it was time to separate the curds and whey.



The goal was to get as much liquid as possible out of the curds. This took a while.



Some amount of manual labor was required (with gloves because hot cheese).

Then I noticed that the instructions mentioned putting the curds in a microwaveable bowl.

This was a problem.

We don't have a microwave.

There's no real reason for this; we're not purists. We've just never felt the need. And our counter space is pretty much occupied with other things at this point, so getting a microwave would mean moving things around and squashing our available workspace even more.

Yes, it's a little annoying when we buy things (say, proper Christmas pudding) that requires an hour of steaming in a bain marie or a quick 15 minutes in the nuker.

It's even more of a pain in cases like Project Mozzarella, where the assumption is that there's no need to include instructions of the analog kind, because who could possibly be so ill-equipped?

So I hopped on the Googles to see what our options were. First stop was The Pioneer Woman's blog; she had a whole post on making mozzarella. Look at her and her gorgeous, wholesome friends, going back to the old ways!

And then they got to this part:

12. Then transfer the cheese to a microwave-save bowl and microwave the curd on high for 1 minute.

Okay, she's a modern pioneer woman, I guess. Unless I missed the Little House episode where the Ingalls clan takes the covered wagon to Best Buy.

At this point, I wasn't in the mood to plough through a bunch of sites looking for help. The Boy vaguely remembered seeing a show about cheesemaking that involved something like oversized steam tables, so we improvised with a bain marie (two references in one post!). The goal was to cook the curds enough to wring out more whey, and then heat the cheese up to a stretchable texture.

This proved tricky, and took a while, but eventually we were there. And no, I didn't take any photos of that part. Go back and look at Pioneer Woman's sexy photos and imagine that's what it looked like.

The end result: not pretty.



But pretty good for a first attempt. And pretty tasty, too; more buttery than the shop-bought stuff. A little more chewy, but certainly edible.

Dinner that night:



The original plan had been to do the whole pizza from scratch: I'd already made a dough; we had a basil plant, still holding on from the summer; and I had a final harvest of cherry tomatoes that I'd oven-roasted and frozen for a moment just like this.

However, I'd forgotten that I'd already used up the tomatoes in a (very delicious) stew. So I went out and got more (I know! Seasonal produce FAIL!), which I roasted guiltily.

Plus, also, prosciutto, which we didn't make from our own pig.

Plus, after all that, I forgot to use the basil.

Still. Pizza.



As you may be able to tell, the mozzarella didn't get as melty as we'd hoped. Not sure whether that was the result of overly enthusiastic manual stimulation, or the issue with the heat, or what. But that cheese kit will allegedly provide us with chances to make another three pounds of cheese, so we'll just keep trying.

Bondir's Harvest Opera: Son et nourriture

I'm always interested when people pair food with something else. Wine, yes, obvs, but more than that: theater, music, story — a different aspect that brings an extra dimension, or context, to the act of eating.

So I was excited to learn about Sensing Terroir: A Food Opera (PDF), a collaboration between Bondir chef Jason Bond and Ben Houge, a digital audio artist. Their plan was to create a dining experience that paired each course of a meal with specific sounds, connecting dishes to the farmers and producers that contributed the ingredients.

To quote from Houge's Food Opera Manifesto:

I’ve long appreciated fine food, and somewhere along the line I realized that enjoying a well-crafted meal was an inherently time-based experience, akin to ballet, music, or film, but tailored to the sense of taste. This is true not only in the succession of courses, but in the way a course evolves, as flavors meld, textures break down, and hot and cold converge to room temperature. Even psychologically, our perception of a new dish changes as we become accustomed to it. Once I acknowledged this, the desire to compose music to accompany a meal, just like a dance or film score, followed naturally.

The idea was to synch the sounds to the dish each individual diner was eating, using video-game technology and tabletop speakers, so that the experience would be customized to each person, regardless of when they started eating or how long it took them to finish.

Brilliant, right?

When we arrived, the first thing we noticed was the drone. It filled the space, a low, electronic sound, gently rising and falling in intensity, with occasional accordion-like trills underneath. The sound came from speakers at ceiling level and large pods on wooden stands on the floor.

You can see one of the floor-pods just next to The Boy's hand (plus Houge talking to a table behind us):



Each table also had a set of these:



These smaller speakers were intended for the specific sounds that would accompany each dish.

The low drone continued throughout the evening. And while we looked over the menu, we heard this from the tabletop speakers:



(Water? Traffic? Fryolator? Not sure.)

One of the waitstaff came over to check in. "You've been here before, haven't you?" she said. "You sat over there." She pointed to the table we had last time.

Wow. We were last at Bondir three months ago.

"How could you remember that?" I asked.

"You had blue and green nail polish," she said, smiling.

Maybe it's just that I have the world's worst memory for faces. But that was scarily impressive.

The first course was a poached egg, warm and soft, with beets in solid and sauce formats and a ginger-sesame foam. The sweetness of the beets, the spicy-sweet foam and the richness of the yolk were a lovely combination.



This was served with Pu-Erh tea in the world's daintiest cup:



Interesting idea, to start with tea, and it marked the first of five excellent beverage pairings. The next course came with a hot spiced chianti that was more delicate and streamlined than the usual mulled wine. It was a great accompaniment for the pig's ear terrine.



I've only had pig's ear in crispy form, so this was new. It was tender and delicious — not chewy, not over-salted. It came with Roxbury Russet apple (which made me excited, as I'd learned from Amy Traverso's The Apple Lover's Cookbook that it's the oldest variety of apple in the US, bred in what is now part of Boston).

For the next course, The Boy and I went different ways, as he can't do anything that wears its skeleton on the outside. I had lobster (from Scituate) on top of a baby pumpkin stuffed with creamy, rich, delicious grits and a garnish of caramelized seaweed.



(BTW, I realize the photos aren't great; the light wasn't quite strong enough for my little camera.)

The Boy had the other option, a sweet potato tart. Which had spent, unfortunately, a couple of minutes too long in the oven.



It was good, apart from the very burnt bits.

Somewhere around here we realized we weren't getting the full son et nourriture experience. Apparently the system had crashed (ah, techmologee!) and after the reboot it wasn't reaching all the tables.

Part of the reason it had taken us so long to notice was that the whole room was so loud. If there had been any customized sound, it had to compete with this:



The system was soon back up, but it was still hard to hear anything from our tabletop speakers. There was occasional dialog (Houge had interviewed some of the farmers whose produce we were eating) but much of it was washed away in the sea of room noise. I heard something about growing butternut squash, but that was about it.

Oh well, more food. We diverged again for the next course: The Boy chose chicken with bacon, chestnuts and turnip, the meat juicy and tender.



I had a fennel gratin with assorted fall veggies and a cube of teff polenta. I think that was my first time with teff — would def do again.



And then dessert. There were two choices, so we got one of each and shared.

Chocolate "enlightenment," a dense, rich mousse that came with, among other things, a parsnip purée that worked surprisingly well:



And angel-food cake with a lovely black walnut ice cream and a deep, fruity swirl of huckleberry sauce.



Dessert came with a glass of Dolin red vermouth. More restaurants should serve tea to start and vermouth to finish. Just sayin'.

So, was this a successful experiment? From our perspective ... almost. The concept was great, but the setting was, I think, an obstacle.

Even if, as Houge's manifesto notes, "the awareness and appreciation of food happens intermittently, during pauses in the conversation," there's an assumption that those pauses will allow for an aural experience because people are quietly eating. In a busy restaurant, however, any pause in one table's conversation is filled by laughter and conversation from surrounding diners.

So, for instance, I wasn't able to hear the farmers talk about their work, but I did get to hear all about Montessori schools from the next table, whether I wanted to or not.

I'd be interested to see how this concept develops, and whether the answer involves more specific targeting of directional sound. Or smaller audiences. Or having someone stand over every table like this:



(Actually, Cusack? Definitely count me in.)

Southern style at M3 in Davis Square

Like the formation of a new and delicious galaxy, there has been something of a slow-motion explosion of interesting places to eat in the Boston-Cambridge-Somerville area over the past year or so.

Which is particularly frustrating when one spends a considerable amount of time unable to eat (or at least unable to eat in polite society). I spend my days reading local food blogs and noting the new arrivals with a mix of curiosity and chagrin.

On good weeks, I'm torn: Do I try out a new restaurant, or do I fall back on an old favorite (especially if I've been craving, say, Eastern Standard's charcuterie plate while sucking cold soup through a straw)?

Last night we decided on the former, and headed into Davis Square to check out new southern restaurant M3, which is in the corner spot that used to be Out of the Blue, which was in the spot that used to be Dolly's.



It's a small space, and was pretty busy when we arrived before 6pm. The only available seats were at the counter, which suited us fine, because we were able to watch the action in the tiny kitchen.

The decor is retro-kitsch, but not precious. The walls are covered in chalkboard paint, the lights are hung inside canning jars, and the beer fridge is vintage and chubby.



We ordered beer and studied the menu: frogs' legs? Fried green tomatoes? Oyster po' boy made with Island Creeks? Duck fat (gasp!) burger?

No, wait. Of course, it had to be:



Deep fried cheese curds.

We had discussed going to the Big E again this year, pretty much for the sole purpose of tracking down the cheese curds vendor. But now we didn't have to.

Which, as The Boy pointed out, was not necessarily a good thing.

"It was better when they were a two-hour drive away, and only available for a few days a year," he said, between mouthfuls of popplers. "Now they're just down the street. How am I supposed to control myself?"

The curds at M3 are less cheesy than their state fair cousins — rather than being in big chewy chunks, the cheese is smaller and melts into the batter. But we could still imagine ourselves stopping by M3 for a beer and a quick cheese-curd fix. Often. Too often.

Anyway, there was something more dangerously tasty on the specials board yesterday: chicken and waffle nuggets.



Imagine brined chicken, dipped in waffle batter, deep fried and finished with poached cherries.

The whole thing is soft and warm; the batter is pillowy and a little sweet; the fruit adds a slight tartness and pulls everything together.



Now we really could have stopped there; a little deep-fried goodness goes a long way. But we'd already ordered mains, all of which come with a choice of three sides (hence "meat and three," or M3). So:

For The Boy, chicken-fried steak with corn, Brussels sprouts and sweet potato casserole.



The steak breading had an almost chocolatey note to it, which was unexpected and good.

I've never quite understood how marshmallow became the default topping for sweet potatoes, but there you go. This was Fluff, which I guess counts as locavore (??).



I had the catfish, with more Brussels, the mac and cheese, and the root veggie hash.



The fish was nice and flaky, though sliced so thin that it was a little overwhelmed by the batter for my liking.



The sprouts were small and plentiful, and the mac and cheese ... was a thing of beauty. Light, creamy, with a mild cheese sauce, it reminded me of the baked macaroni pudding desserts we'd sometimes have when I was a kid.

But yes, we had indeed ordered way too much food; the portions are extremely generous.



How generous? Put it this way: we had our sides boxed up to bring home. I weighed the leftovers, which clock in at just over a pound.

In other news, dinner tonight is sorted.

I currently feel a little overwhelmed at the number of new places to try. Do youse guys have any suggestions? Is there a new restaurant we really should check out while I'm still able to eat?

Across the water for Australian meat pie

Last week I was feeling a little down. Mostly, I think, it was because we'd just come back from a lovely Labor Day weekend in Montreal (more on that later) and I had post-vacation malaise, with nothing much to look forward to except more hospital visits.

By Friday, I'd decided moping around wasn't helping in the least, and what I needed was an Adventure.

So I decided to head across the water for Australian food.

I've been thinking about a visit to KO Pies pretty much since The Boy and I went to the tiny restaurant in Southie ... wow, almost two years ago?? But somehow my meat-pastry cravings have never quite aligned with being able to get out there.

(You'd think it was a thousand miles away, rather than a fistful of Red Line stops.)

When KO opened its second location, I was delighted to see they were doing well enough for expansion. But Eastie? In the shipyard? Were they trying to make it harder for me?? (Because of course it's all about me.)

And then my friend Eric pointed out that the City Water Taxi not only served the shipyard, but also had a discount deal with KO Pies; if you told the boat captain where you were headed, you got $7 off the fare.

And so, with the promise of delicious pie and a cheap boat ride, the Adventure came together.

First stop: Down to the Intercontinental Hotel near South Station, to request a pick-up. I used my phone, but you can also go all CB-radio with the walkie-talkie attached to the sign.



After a few minutes, a boat skimmed into view, and I was off across the water.




The trip to the shipyard is short — not exactly a leisurely ocean cruise. But I'm a sucker for being out on the water, so it was worth it for a few minutes of salty sea breeze.

Because I'd explained to Rob, my taxi captain, where I was going, we had a nice chat about the awesomeness that is a KO Pie. So as I was disembarking, I asked (half-joking) if I could bring him anything back.

"Actually, that would be great," he said. "I haven't been able to get off the boat all morning, so I could really do with something to eat."

I took his order and he gave me some cash and directions to the restaurant, which turned out to be just around the corner, surrounded by warehouses and industrial buildings.

The place is about the same size as the Southie location: A tiny bar, a couple of tables and a strip of counter space. There's also pub-style seating outdoors. There's not much of a view, but that's okay. Because pie.



I looked over the menu, trying to tell myself that maybe I wanted a nice healthy chickpea salad or a grilled whitefish sandwich, but it was hopeless. I was here for pie. And pie I was going to get.

And also, beer. Because Australia.

The KO beef pie takes me right back to being a kid; the flaky pastry and sweet, peppery ground beef filling are what Proust would have warbled on about if he grew up in the Northeast of England.



I know, it doesn't look totally appetizing. And the fact that you have to eat it with your hands means you're not gonna impress anyone. Luckily, paper napkins are abundant. (Pro-tip: order a salad, which comes with a fork, and you can get around the no-utensils loophole.)

But on a sunny Friday lunchtime, when you're not in a hurry, and you want a change of scenery, it's perfect.

Wait — not in a hurry? I had to get a pie to Captain Rob before he crashed into Old Ironsides!

I went back inside the restaurant, ordered a curried veggie pie and an ANZAC cookie, went back down to the dock and called for my captain.

Minutes later, we were out on the water again, Captain Rob apologizing for shoveling the pie into his face while I breathed in sea air and dreamed about taking off across the ocean on a boat provisioned with fragrant meat pastries.

I'm not going to wait another two years before my next KO Pie fix. Might even try a Lamington next time.

Restaurant Week lunch at Summer Winter

Hey, look! She's blogging again! I know, it's been (checks) holy moly, a month since I last posted. Frankly, I just haven't felt like writing — or at least haven't had much to write about.

Treatment is going ... well, it's going. I've now had four cycles with The Bag, and will get an MRI in a couple of weeks to see whether The Lump is at a point that my scary-but-briliant radiation oncologist can start planning the "la-sers."

Meanwhile, apart from weekly hospital visits for treatment/music therapy/acupuncture/sandwiches, I've been spending most of my time at home. I'm not supposed to go out in the sun (chemo makes the skin especially susceptible to burning) so I mostly sit on my now-cozy porch to read, nap, drink protein shakes, nap, watch movies, and nap. I don't have much to complain about, but also nothing exciting to write about.

For the past two cycles, my chemo side effects have been greatly reduced. It's either the result of reducing the dose, or the benefits of weekly acupuncture, or both, but whatever the reason, I'm no longer spending four straight days on a liquid diet.

Which is why on Friday, instead of miserably inhaling cold soup though a straw, I was able to enjoy Restaurant Week lunch at Summer Winter in Burlington.

I went with my ladies-who-lunch friend Jean, with whom I'd visited Summer Winter for Restaurant Week last March. The highlight of that lunch had been the blueberry upside-down cake, the memory of which had lingered since. So when I saw it was part of the Resto Week menu this time, I was extremely happy.

We got a table along the wall of windows that look out onto Summer Winter's tiny patio and veggie garden. Here are their boxes of squash.



Unfortunately, we were also right next to the floor a/c vents, which meant we were in a chilly draft. Note to self: Next time, bring a wrap.

Summer Winter's garden and greenhouse mean they use fresh herbs in just about everything, including their cocktails. I really wanted to try one, but my mouth isn't quite ready for liquor yet. And I was interested to see what the bar was capable of. So when our first server asked if I wanted a drink, I asked if I could get a non-alcoholic something that used some of the same herbs as the booze versions. He said he'd see what he could do.

Meanwhile, food. First up, mini crab cakes.

It's easy to take a heavy hand to crab cakes; they can be dense and rich in a way that masks the delicate meat. These, however, were light, flaky, with a slight crispness to the batter.



They came with what the menu listed as "Mom's slaw," which again could have meant crudely sliced cabbage awash with mayo, but instead was almost translucent cabbage in a vinaigrette — a much more effective foil for the lightly creamy crabby patties.



Jean ordered the gazpacho. I didn't try it (sometimes, even tomato is a little too acidic for my still-healing mouth) but she said it was delicious. Certainly looked it.



For my main, I went with cavatelli with roast corn and lobster.



Grilling corn really brings out the flavor; every mouthful tasted like summer. The lobster was sweet and fresh. The only thing that didn't totally work was the queso fresco topping; it neither melted nor crumbled into the dish, but instead sat and waited to be eaten in two lumps.

(Not that I have a problem eating lumps of cheese, you understand; but once they were gone, they were gone.)

Jean had the planked haddock, which came with jasmine rice and a sauce we couldn't decipher (dill? Fennel?) but which turned out to be tarragon and mustard. Good fish and a nice presentation.



Halfway through, our main server came to check in. I asked about the mocktail, which still hadn't shown up.

"Oh," he said, "that other guy wasn't your server. He probably didn't put the order in."

Oookayyy ... then maybe he shouldn't have asked what I wanted to drink?

Anyway, I explained again what I was looking for — something that took advantage of Summer Winter's herb crop — and he disappeared, returning soon after with a highball of this:



It had, let's see: basil, mint, lavender, lemon geranium, lime, lemon, and blueberries, finished with soda water. He said it was a take on the restaurant's vodka-based blueberry lime rickey, to which he added a couple of things.

It was refreshing, aromatic, and complex; a perfect summer drink.

I'd probably have been quite happy with that as dessert, but there was more to come. Both Jean and I had the long-awaited blueberry upside-down cake.



Looking back at last year's Restaurant Week lunch at Summer Winter, I realize the dessert is almost exactly the same. Last time, it came with ice cream, while this year the accompaniment was cinnamon-infused whipped cream (a nice complement to the blueberries). I thought it was more lemony last year, but Jean said this one also had a good note of lemon, so it's possible my dented taste buds just weren't getting it.

Either way, it was still good enough that, as I did last year, I decided I needed to make my own at home. There are wild organic Maine blueberries sitting in the fridge right now, and this time I'm actually going to follow through with the plan.

Which means I might not wait a whole month before I post again.

Summer project: Porch makeover

One downside of going through cancer treatment in summer is that chemo drugs make the skin much more sensitive to sunlight. And while I'm in no hurry (or shape) to sit on the beach all day, I still want to get some fresh air, hear birds singing, see leafy stuff. The idea of being stuck indoors every day is a little oppressive.

We have a screened-in porch at the back of the house, but it's always been a little sad. When we moved in, the whole thing was painted battleship gray, so we added some color and threw in some plastic picnic chairs, but that was about it.

Here's the "before" color scheme; note the still-gray ceiling.



We'd sit out there sometimes, but the chairs weren't really comfy and it always seemed shoddy and unfinished.

This year, though, I had both the motivation — and the time — to think about what I really wanted to do with the porch. As it's so tiny (just six feet wide and 12 feet long), I wanted to keep a simple color scheme and a minimal amount of clutter. No extraneous decorative bits and pieces; everything had to be pretty and serve a purpose.

First, it needed some of the sort of TLC I didn't feel energetic enough to provide: paint and new wood. As it turned out, my work cube-buddy Nova's fiancé does that clever sort of thing for a living, so he came over and for a reasonable price had the whole space done in three days.



Huge difference already, huh?

Next, furniture. Most new chairs I looked at were huge, built for the patios of McMansions (or at least for spaces wider than my six-foot porch) and much more expensive than I was willing to fork over.

So I started stalking Craigslist, and soon found the perfect thing.



Do ya love it? Of course you do! The seller also had a matching table; I picked them both up.



I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted the porch to look, so the next week was spent going Extreme Makeover on the chair and table; searching for accessories online; and going fabric shopping with my friend Peter (who also loaned me his sewing machine, which moved things along quickly and made me realize I should probably get one).

Ready to see the results? Close your eyes ...

Okay, open them!



Here's the chair and table up close:



A few details: The table and chair cost $125. Primer and paint were $30. Three yards of remnant fabric (enough for two cushions and a tablecloth) from Sewfisticated in Somerville were $13.

The indoor-outdoor reversible rug is from b.b. begonia ($48), and the orange table was a $12 Marshalls' find. The sheer drapes and paper lanterns were from Amazon and cost around $35 total. We'd bought the blinds a while back, but usually kept them rolled up. Letting them hang loose gave a lot more privacy and shade from the sun.

I had another table that had been a sidewalk find many years back; it was previously bright pink. As there was leftover blue paint from the walls, I used it on this table so it would be a little less obtrusive (given how quickly the porch was filling up with Stuff).



It's so rare that I get a chance to do a makeover on a space like this; the other rooms in our apartment are decorated organically, and evolve into some state of design (or not) that we're happy with. It was so much fun to change up the porch, in large part because it gave me something to focus on during the worst of the chemo side effects.

And now I have somewhere to sit outside and enjoy the rest of the summer!



(In case you wondered: Yes, I do happen to like this shade of blue ...)