Ottawa adventures
I just got back Monday from a conference trip that was supposed to end Sunday. Continental cancelled the last flight out of town and then refused to pay for a hotel, so 3 of my friends and I ended having to split a room - good thing the History of Education is such a congenial field.
But at least I had a chance to take a few photos of the city for posterity; here's a view of the lovely Canadian Parliament (the building on the left) from one of the canals:
Just south of Parliament, I passed this very disturbing sign in the front window of the recruitment center for the Canadian Air Force; any guess as to who the phrase, "Get ready now, they are coming" might refer to? Looks like we're rubbing off on our Northern neighbors - sigh.
The delay also gave us time to go check out a movie - the theater was inside an office building/mall combination that had a series of huge fiberglass whales hanging from the ceiling - very odd:
I also spent some time in Byward Market, a mix of outdoor stalls, indoor shops, and some of the city's best restaurants. I bought some maple syrup (darker than what we can usually find here), maple butter (sounded interesting), and buckwheat honey - much healthier than lighter types, and I think tastier. I was sorry I couldn't bring home any of the gorgeous vegetables, and had fun checking out the halloween decorations - especially "the pumpkin carver's" amazing sculptures:
Happy Halloween!
Whirlwind Weekend
Bill and I had a busy weekend, with visitors in town every day. It's always nice to have an excuse to check out new things! Though unfortunately we didn't have time to squeeze in visits to the Newark Arts Council's Gallery Crawl on Friday night or Open Studio Tour on sunday - maybe next year:
http://www.newark-opendoors.org/.
Friday started for me with the second meeting of the Institute's Heningburg Fellows program, a meeting where civic leaders who work on a broad variety of issues - development, schools, green space, health care - come together to talk about their experiences in and their ideas about Newark. Check out our website here for a list of current fellows and a description of the program:
http://65.36.189.169/iecme/?section=events&fuse=main&id=57.
That evening Bill and I met up with friends from Roselle Park for a quick bite at Riviera - a bakery on Ferry that turns out to have pretty tasty grilled sandwiches. They were on their way to the opening night concert of the New Jersey Symphony at NJ Performing Arts Center, where they have a subscription for the season - $95 for 10 shows, not bad:
http://www.njsymphony.org/Tickets/Subscriptions/Newark.htm.
We spent the evening at home, though since i had an early appointment at the Institute to talk to students at the Saturday Academy program, which brings high school students from Newark onto campus to take morning courses on topics like Student Movements in the 60s and Slave Narrative and American History:
http://65.36.189.169/iecme/?section=events&fuse=main&id=59 .
I was there to see if any of the students were interested in helping work on a documentary about high school students' experiences with the Newark riots that I'm putting together, and had quite a few sign up - should be a great experience all around.
But I had to get back home quickly for a visit from my aunt, after which Bill and I walked down to Riverbank Park to catch the end of a "vintage baseball game," sponsored by the NJ Historical Society, in which the teams wore vintage uniforms and played by 18th century rules:
http://www.jerseyhistory.org/news_detail.php?recid=97 For instance, no one but the catcher wore gloves, and the umpire wore formal clothing and stood behind the pitcher - interesting.
That was followed by a (LOOONG) trip into Manhattan to meet Bill's friends for dinner at Cafe Mozart (tasty, but they put a white curly wig on you if it's your birthday - scary):
http://www.cafemozart.com/ and some drinks and a few rounds of Connect Four at Dive 75:
http://www.divebarnyc.com/dive75.htm - not really a dive bar, but ok anyway.
Somehow we managed to get up the next morning to meet up with friends visiting from Philly, who came up to check out the comics exhibit at the Newark museum. We had a terrific and very reasonably priced lunch at Seabra's Marisqueria:
http://www.njdiningguide.net/Seabras/lunch.html. Two of our visitors were from Greece, and said the food and the neighborhood reminded them of being there.
Then we headed over to the Newark Museum, where we checked out the fantastic exhibit on the history of comics:
http://www.newarkmuseum.org/comics/, running now through January 28. The Newark Museum has half of the exhibit, and focuses mostly on newspaper comics; the Jewish Museum in NYC has the other half, and focuses more on comic books:
http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/
I think we got the sweet end of that deal - my favorite by far were the amazingly detailed and beautiful pieces by Winsor McCay, who's best known for the "Little Nemo in Slumberland" Sunday comics. We also got to see a lecture from the editor of the star Ledger, writer Pete Hamill, and artist Jules Pfeiffer, who had an interesting discussion about the pieces in the exhibit and their own memories of comics.
After some delicious desserts at the reception afterward, my friends headed home and we went back to our apartment to get ready for our next visitors - friends arriving the next day from England on their way to NYC and Boston. Fortunately, we were all in the mood for a quiet day at that point - though they insisted on taking me out to dinner at Boi Na Brasa, a rodizio restaraunt in the neighborhood that's recently been
written up in both the New York Times and the Village Voice:
http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0611,sietsema,72498,15.htmlWe all slept in the next morning, understandably.
Menendez and Chaat in Jersey City
Bill and I just got back from an interesting evening in Jersey City, just a couple stops away from us on the PATH. We had signed up last week for a night of phone-banking for the Menendez Senate campaign. Though we were sorry not to be able to take part in the anti-Santorum activities in Pennsylvania, it looks like the race between Bob Menendez and Tom Kean Jr. is actually going to be a lot more competitive - so much so that the National Republican Senatorial Committee just gave Kean half a million dollars to spend on campaign ads:
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/politics/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/1161008980129380.xml&storylist=politicsSo we were glad to be able to help out (as newly registered NJ voters), and spent a fairly productive evening making calls to voters in Jersey City - most people we talked to supported Menendez, but with a couple undecided people I got to have a brief chat about how important it was to vote Democratic this year. If you're interested in learning more about the campaign, volunteering, or donating, check out its website here:
http://www.menendez2006.com/home/After phonebanking we took our newly acquired Menendez poster for a visit to Jersey City's "Little India" neighborhood, where we went out to dinner at one of the many restaurants along Newark Street. After consulting Google and finding this tantalizing article -
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/dining/09chat.html?ex=1161403200&en=66d382c7378d9589&ei=5070 - I had decided we might like to check out one of the chaat restaurants in the neighborhood. Chaat is Indian street/snack food, and tends to be a little harder to find in the U.S. than curries and other types of Indian food. I had tried it once in college, but hadn't really seen it since.
Based on the article's list of places, we ended up at Satkar (806 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, (201) 963-6309), an informal place with a reasonably priced menu and friendly service. I don't remember the exact name of the dishes we tried, but two were what I think of as traditional chaat - mixes of unsweetened cereal (like rice crisps and puffed wafers made of wheat and corn) with spices, potatoes, beans, and, in one of them, delicious yogurt sauce. We also tried a dhosa - a round of flat fried crepe-type bread with vegetables and warm chutney. The one we ordered was about 15 inches diameter, full of lace-like holes about a quarter-inch wide, flavored with spice powder and hot green chilies, and filled with spicy sauteed onions. Yummy, but impossible to finish after our chaat-feast. Anyway, all of that and two bottles of mango juice came to about $22 with tax and tip - not bad. And yet another place we can bring vegetarian visitors!
After popping into a grocery stores for garam masala, lentils, mango jam, and some ready-to-serve Indian meals (who needs Trader Joes?), we headed home - but I think we'll be back to Little India soon!
Walk for the Cure
Well, I'm finally relatively healthy again - enough to complete the 3 mile Walk for the Cure this morning in downtown Newark, anyway. Bill and I joined our neighbor Linda on her walk, which was not only for a good cause - a cure for breast cancer - but let us see a bit more of the downtown while walking down the middle of Broad Street - usually NOT a good idea.
Linda mentioned to us that Grace Episcopal Church, seen below, was where the melody to America the Beautiful was composed. According to this website:
http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200000001/default.html, the current music was written by the church's choirmaster in 1882, and the words often used to be sung to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne" - interesting.
We also saw a few other interesting landmarks on the way down (before our camera's batteries died), though I'm afraid I can't identify them - maybe once I take anouther walk downtown I'll add the names of this other church:
And this war memorial:
In any case, the walk seemed to be a big success. You can't really tell from these pictures, but there were hundreds and hundreds of people out for it - including lots of high school students, which was great to see. And I have to say one of the highlights was getting to see Batman driving slowly along, complete with vanity plate. You never know who you're going to run into here in Newark!
Ironbound restaurant reviews: Mompou, Brasilia Grill, Galicia Spain
Well, since I came down with a cold and won't be tasting anything for a while, maybe this is a good time to review some of my recent food adventures in the neighborhood. I'll start with last night's visit to Mompou, a "tapas-wine bar-lounge" at 77 Ferry Street:
www.mompoutapas.com . I had noticed it on previous walks down Ferry because of its cool decor (one of the walls is made of cross-sections of logs), its noisy happy hour crowd, and the fact that it seemed newer and trendier than most places in the neighborhood (which can always potentially be good or bad.) Fortunately it was a good thing, especially given that we were out with a vegetarian friend - this is definitely the best place we've found in the Ironbound for non-carnivores.
We got there around 8, got a table right away, and ordered a couple of glasses of wine - the list had lots of selections by the glass, with most around $6-$9. We then ordered five tapas dishes to share between the three of us for dinner, which turned out to be plenty. The salad came with "mescaline" greens (hee hee), pine nuts and macadamia nuts, fresh raspberries, and grated cheese; "black and white" fettucine (the black one had squid ink, I believe) with shrimp, scallops, and clams in a creamy white truffle sauce, eggplant with fresh tomato sauce and cheese, piquillo peppers stuffed with cheese, and a vegetable terrine with toast rounds to spread it on. The terrine was a little bland, but otherwise everything was delicious, and was exactly enough food to leave us sated but still willing to walk down the street for a quick snack at the bakery. With the wine and tip, the bill for the three of us came to about $60 - a just a little too pricey to go to frequently, but certainly a good deal considering the quality.
But for those meat-eaters out there, the options abound. I'll start with a couple places on the pricier side - Brasilia Grill and Galicia Spain - then cover some of the cheaper places in another post.
Brasilia Grill (
http://www.brasiliagrill.com/) is a huge, fairly new place at 99 Monroe St (just off of Ferry) with a bright neon sign that you can't miss. We went on a Saturday night and it was packed, but we got a booth right away - good luck, maybe?
Brasilia Grill is best know for its "rodizio" - Brazilian-style "continuous meat," as the menu put it. Waiters bring big skewers of roasted meat to your table and carve off pieces of it, which you take with your own set of tongs. I especially liked the sirloin with garlic and the skirt steak, but there were also skewers of sausages, roasted chicken, pork, lamb - and even chicken hearts, if you're into the organ meat thing. (Which I'm not.) There's also a big buffet in the middle of the room with dozens of hot and cold dishes (I liked the okra and plantains, didn't like the seafood salad - too slimy) - but be sure to save room for the meat!
Going on weekends is a little more expensive - about $25 per person for the rodizio and the buffet instead of about $20 on other nights - but has the added benefit of a live band wandering around playing samba music. The little girl at the next table had a great time getting down to "Happy Birthday" samba-style - very cute. Anyway, the total bill for the three of us, including a small pitcher of very tasty sangria and a tip (included in the bill) came to about $100. Again, too expensive for me and Bill to go to very often, but a fun night out!
For a much more low-key experience than either Mompou or Brasilia Grill, I'd recommend Galicia Spain at 72 Bruen St (which has the added benefit of being right down the street from us.) We went around 9 on a Tuesday, and were one of only two tables of people there, but the service and food were great anyway (always a good sign). We started with a couple of glasses of the house red (generously poured at $5.50 a glass), a salad of greens, manchego, and delicious spanish ham, cheese and crab stuffed piquillo peppers, and a few bowls of soup - Bill and my friend got the very tasty soup of the day with their entrees, which had white beans, greens, and a few other things. I got the garlic soup, which was a highlight of the dinner - light tomato broth with slices of roasted garlic and strands of lightly cooked egg white. If you like garlic (and I do), you will LOVE this soup.
We also ordered a couple of entrees - Bill got the short ribs, which were good but nothing too exciting (especially in a neighborhood filled with so much fantastic meat). My friend, however, got the pork elbow, which was amazing - four inches across, 8 inches long, full of bright pink salty smoked meat - plus two whole boiled potatoes and what looked like half a cabbage. It was very tasty but too much for any mortal to finish - she took most of it home to make soup. Altogether, the bill came to about $85 for the three of us, including the wine and the tip, and we had enough food left over for a couple more meals - not too bad.
Anyway, more on the local food later!
Our mini-tour of Newark
This Saturday Bill and I decided to take a little driving tour of Newark, and I mapped us out a route that hit some of the highlights from the "Once and Future Newark" documentary. Sadly, we forgot our camera, though - I'll try to make up for it by posting some links to photos of where we went.
We started with a visit to Branch Brook Park, where we picked up some local corn, honey, and tomatoes at the farmer's market and then drove around a bit. Here's a link to a page with some photos and the history of the park -
http://www.branchbrookpark.org/about1.htm - turns out it was designed in 1900 by Frederick Law Olmstead, the creator of Central Park. (As was Independence Park, a great little park just a short walk from us in the Ironbound.) Branch Brook's probably best known for its springtime cherry blossoms - check out some photos from a fan of them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drp/10465136/in/set-258501/ Hopefully we'll be able to check them out ourselves next April!
We then enjoyed getting a bit lost in the Forest Hills section of Newark, which borders the park and is filled with huge, gorgeous homes. Check out some photos of them and some more information on the history of the neighborhood here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Hill,_Newark,_New_JerseyOur next stop was one of the highlights of the day - a visit to the Sacred Heart Basilica (begun in 1899 and finished in 1954!) It's a huge stone cathedral in the middle of a fairly normal neighborhood, next to one of the city's high schools - quite a sight. The Basilica's website has a great virtual tour here:
http://www.cathedralbasilica.org/tour/nojava/index.shtml - I highly recommend checking it out.
After leaving the cathedral, we found our way to the Greater Newark Conservancy's new Urban Environmental and Ecological Center - check out the link here for more details:
http://newark1.com/conserve/enviro_description.htm . This terrific little community garden, greenhouse, and education center was is in the process of being created on the grounds of a former synagogue, and normally isn't open to the public. But we were lucky enough to stop by during their harvest festival, and had a great time drinking apple cider, judging a scarecrow contest, and picking out a pumpkin to bring home. The volunteers from the Conservancy were interested to hear that we had just moved from Philadelphia - they said that they hoped Newark would eventually have as much of thriving community garden movement as Philly does.
Unfortunately, our trip was cut a little short at this point, since it started raining - we drove through Weequahic Park and Lincoln Park on our way back, but real visits to those are going to have to wait until we get another free day - and that time, hopefully we'll remember our camera!
