Thomas Dolby put on a fantastic show the other night at the Birchmere, accompanied by the Jazz Mafia Horns, and was kind enough to come out after the show to meet with some fans.
Needless to say, The Lady had a wonderful time!
WiFi is a marvelous thing.
I'm sitting on the porch of a beach house on Tybee Island, Georgia; just east of Savannah. It's early evening and the tide is coming in with the sunset. We're about 50 yards from the beach. There's a great breeze blowing in, and my brother Chris is sitting here at the table recovering from a simple dinner of burgers on the grill. It's a little jarring actually being here after the last week.
In addition to getting the hearing aids, I've left the employ of the Club. In fact, you could say I've simply left employ of everything for the time being.
Frankly, after 20 years, the Chef thing has gotten real old. I've decided to drop the whole concept of cooking for a living, and try to move on to something else. Let's call it a midlife crisis, wherein I'm totally aware that the crisis is going on, and I'm not screwing the secretary and buying a Ferrari. Not that I've ever had a secretary or could afford a Ferrari, but you get the picture.
Now Chris has gone off somewhere, and Mom and The Lady have sat down with me. Susan is behind me on a bench with Suzie the cat, who lives next door, but seems to have adopted us for the duration.
And this is the secret of me having a midlife crisis. Getting to know my family again. I haven't seen Mom in ages, and The Lady has had to deal with my stress on an ongoing basis. I'm down at the beach getting some of the best therapy available, surrounding myself with those who love me. They've been incredibly supportive of my without-a-net act. They've been watching me go a little nuts for awhile now.
The plan, as it stands, is to chill, enjoy two weeks here at Tybee and Savannah, visit with friends up north and breath easy for the rest of the summer. Come fall, I'm going to enroll in a viticulture certificate program at the local community college, and see where that meanders. Mostly, I think it's time to go back to school and try do deal with some unfinished business. Why not? I'll have some time on my hands. I'll supplement with a few part time jobs, but who knows what I'll be doing.
I'm just tired of worrying about it.
My last day at the club was pretty difficult, nonetheless. Laura has been a great chef to work for, and I truly did hate to leave such a good kitchen staff. But I think they understand that I had great issues with the Women Upstairs, and that I could no longer abide the craziness. So, Friday was the last day.
The Lady and I spent the next few days packing and preparing. We went to a fantastic B-52's concert Sunday night, and left C'ville from there, driving through thunderstorms as far as Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where we holed up for the night in a a rather poor motel room.
We got here yesterday afternoon, and brought some brutal storms with us. I did some cooking on the grill last night - I was determined to use a grill, dammit - in a torrential downpour which turned into a king hell thunderstorm which lasted for hours. We all went to bed with it raging around us. I slept deeply and dreamless; the sleep of exhaustion and relief.
I got up around 4:50 this morning and realized the power was out. My cousin Susan couldn't sleep, either, so the we walked down to the beach in the moonlight in the hour before dawn. The whole island was out and dark and still, with the exception of a couple of early walkers like ourselves, we had the beach to ourselves. The only lights where the moon, the stars, some ships out to sea and the Tybee Roads channel lights to the north of the island. More new sounds for the the Chef. Surf fizzes. I heard the flutter of gulls wings as they suspended themselves above us in the breeze as the dawn entered our awareness. Sound is so detailed and immediate. Susan and I talked a bit, but mostly we enjoyed the moment; looking out to sea with Tybee behind us, dark and silent.
Well, I think I'll move inside. Getting dark out here, and some of Tybee's fabled sand gnats have decided that I'm pretty tasty.
While I'm down here, look out for some food and drink blogging. I've got the camera, and I'll post some pics here soon.
In the meantime, y'all take it easy. I know I will.
At some point when I was a child, it became apparent that I was a bit different to the other kids. Namely, I couldn't hear the things they heard.
This was somewhat expected, my mother being hearing impaired. I stepped into this life with the genetic code that dialed me down a notch or so when it came to sound. A childhood of constant ear infections only increased the damage.
At around 10 years, I was fitted with my first hearing aid; a single behemoth hanging off the back of my right ear. Not good for a kid in a school going though desegregation in a southern Virginia town.
It was a primitive device, but it was pretty amazing to me, even though I despised it. It was a simple amplification device, nothing more. It was expensive and delicate and a general pain for a kid to wear, but it was important to my folks, so I wore it. getting fitted for it was sort of fun; I got to sit in a soundproof booth and take a hearing test. I decided that this was a space capsule. It was dark, silent, enclosed; cut off from the world with just a single window out onto a control center manned by the audiologist.
I went through various combinations of hearing aids; right or left, power up or down.
Teenage years came and went, and so did the hearing aids. The sound was just too much. Straight volume; everything way too loud, with no discrimination. What's the good of hearing everything and not being able to sort it all out.
I'd had enough of them. I was tired of them. To a young man, they were an albatross of social stigma.
At around 26, I decided to give them another shot. Cosmetically, they had improved. They had been able to miniaturize the thing so it would fit sort of inside the ear. They were better than they had been, but were far more delicate. Mere sweat could fry these poor creatures. And they did.
Twenty years later, I took yet another chance. My parents and The Lady were worried that the world was passing me by. It was, in so many ways. I missed so much. Conversations in groups were mysteries wherein I was too embarrassed to confess my ignorance. Instead, I would learn tone, and follow the flow of the conversation. When people would laugh, then so would I. But I rarely heard the punchline.
So, another set of hearing aids. But this time, there was a marked improvement; the sound quality was far better, and there was a switchable program for two different environments. This was more like it. The aids were fickle, more expensive than ever and over the long term, very troublesome. But I stuck with them. I had to. I had reached over the threshold of being 50% hearing impaired. I was now dependent on those hearing aids just to get through the day and to earn a living.
Sounds were still mostly just amplified and just loud. But that was better than the alternative. So, I kept on keeping on, missing the world around me. Missing so much.
Recently, I became clear that it was time to get new hearing aids. The ones I got 5 years ago were giving up the ghost, and it was great trepidation that I went to the audiologist.
Once again, I sat in my space capsule.
The test was about what I expected; continued deterioration across the spectrum of around 5 dB. Ah, well. I'm used to it by now.
I had decided to get the finest aid available for my needs, and was ready to shell out the bucks for it. I didn't get my hopes up. After all, there was a lifetime of bittersweet memory ready to pursue me.
But then, something different happened.
In the last five years, the technology went sort of nuts.
The audiologist took the results of my test and input them into a program on her Dell laptop and dialed up the brands and models of aids that would apply to me.
Oh. Behind the ear. Damn, I thought. Come full circle, have I? Then the nice lady showed me what she had in mind.
The thing was an inch long and little over a quarter inch thick, with a very thin tube encasing a wire that attached to a transmitter in the form of flexible silicone earbud. No more ear molds.
She told me it was fully digital. Huh?
How long will they take to get ready, I asked.
Oh, we can do that right now. I do everything right here in the office. On this computer.
I asked how. She said, well, let's just do it, ok? That's the best way to show you.
She took out two aids, prepped them and popped them in my ears. At this point, The Lady was there watching.
She plugged the hearing aids into the laptop through a miniature data port in each device. I was hooked into her computer, with various clicks and snippets of sound breaking though the silence, as she set the programs for the various channels with which this device would service me.
Then she looked at me and said, hold on.
In my left ear, a sound like a starship engine cranking up blasted into my world, repeated in my right a moment later. Then silence. Then a little digital melody best described as a light variation on the Intel theme.
And then humming.
And I asked, what's that?
She smiled, and looked at The Lady. Say something, she said.
The Lady gave me a little look and said, Hey sweetie. And she started reading from a poster in the office.
I almost started crying.
I'd never heard her before. Not like this. Not this way. Not to the point of being almost normal. Her voice was pure sparkling clarity and oh so sweet.
I turned to the audiologist who said, the humming is the light fixtures overhead. I looked up and it occurred to me that the world was opening up in waves around me within this tiny office. I could hear the secretary a room away on the phone and the printer printing and a phone ringing behind me, and I knew right were it was.
It was overwhelming. I was like a child in a sonic candy store, grasping this way and that; lurching after sounds. Sounds that I could never have imagined in my wildest dream.
Sounds the rest of the world takes for granted.
That was 2 days ago. This morning, I picked up the aids after the requisite transfer of funds was completed. Essentially the cost of 3 very powerful laptops sit nearly invisible on and behind my ears, replicating the power of those very computers, analyzing sound to a degree that will continue to bogle my mind.
I have an automatic default setting that screens out sounds that are not of use to me if I don't need to pay attention. I went to work this morning with them, and as I walked along the kitchen's hot line, the sound of the hood fans faded out as I walked to the cook to ask him what his specials were today. I could actually talk to him on the line without the hoods drowning out the conversation.
On my way home, I was trying out the "music" channel on the car radio; switching back and forth between stations. A Spanish waltz here, new alternative there and Roger Daltrey wailing out on Who Are You to depths and highs I never knew existed.
I think for the first time, I really understand where Bill is coming from on the concept of singularity. In the mere passage of days, my life has blasted into another dimension; one where insects buzz, cats purr softly and tree frogs sound like an apocalypse of joy and sensation. Where a pair of devices smaller than the first joint of my pinkie whispers to me the leaves of trees in a summer evening breeze as I walk across the street to Domaine Mojo.
The future is hear.
UPDATE:
Ok. Lots of you are asking about the aids themselves in the comments, both here and at Daily Pundit, as well as through email. BTW, my email is chefmojo-at-earthlink.net. Feel free to drop me a line, and I'll try to answer any specific questions you might have. In the meantime, however, I think I should try to anticipate some of those questions.
Keeping in mind, that this is reflective of my experience and your mileage may vary...
The hearing aids I have are Phonak microPower.
They are not inexpensive, but to me, they're worth every penny. They also have a future. What I'm trying to say is that because they are digital and programmable, I can take them in every now and then to get them tweaked, according to what my hearing is doing and the specific needs I have for them. Also, there are no controls on the aids themselves. Volume and channel control come via a nifty little remote control that goes on my keychain. I chose to go with a non earmold style with silicone "earbuds." I find them far more comfortable than the molds. One's ear canal, like other parts of the body, changes constantly, and the silicone is snug but flexible to bodily changes.
And while I'm at it, I'd like to send a big shout out to Marian Fredner at Albemarle Audiology for guiding me through this. She was up front, honest and professional as all get out. Completely informative. No slight of hand and no pressure tactics. How refreshing to interact with someone like that.
It's been a helluva ride...
(crossposted at Daily Pundit)
...and everybody in the Middle East is doing the bumpin' nasties and getting medieval on each other's ass.
But no matter, because The Lady and I are back from the quick trip to Savannah for John & Michelle's wedding.
Here we are at the wedding. As you can see, it was a casual affair. Thankfully so. Savannah in July is a triffle muggy, and the happy couple, in their infinite wisdom, decided that seasonable clothing was in order.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Way ahead. I'll go ahead and do a bunch of separate posts over the next few days. For now, though, I give you Mr. and Mrs. John Stevens!
What's good, you might also ask...
The Lady decided to do a bunch of pledges at her radio station, WNRN. Among the premiums she ended up with were a pair of tickets to see North Mississippi Allstars at Starr Hill the night before last. Also included was a "meet & greet" with the band during their sound check.
And that was pretty cool, if not a little strange.
We showed up at Starr Hill around 5:45, and went up to the Music Hall, where we were promptly intercepted by someone from Starr Hill. The Lady explained why we were there and we were passed on to Mike, the band guy from Red Light Management. He let us know that we would get together with the band after the sound check.
The band was up on stage, doing their thing. The first thing you notice is that their bass player, Chris Chew, is a very big man. The stage at Starr Hill is not a large space, so it was pretty obvious. Chris has presence, to say the least. He finished his check first, and came over to introduce himself. Nice guy and outgoing, but he seemed pretty tired. He was dressed in gray sweats with a big gold cross pendant hanging out. He took us over to the back room where the bands hang out, collapsed on the couch. We heard about his computer problems, which Mike was trying to solve over his ever present, constantly used uber-cellphone/PDA. The band's road manager was on his cell trying to track down a piece of equipment he'd ordered a while back. Everybody was trying to figure out what the hell was going on for an upcoming festival gig in a town in Florida that was lacking in enough hotel rooms for all the bands performing. It was pretty interesting, from our standpoint.
Meanwhile, the other two members of the band, Luther and Cody Dickenson, are still doing their checks. After about 20 minutes, Luther comes on back. Chris has just finished signing some CD covers for us, and The Lady hands them over to Luther. Very nice; offered to set us up with tickets...
I gotta tell you, the Dickenson brothers do not look like fiery blues guys by anyone's stretch of imagination. It's a bit strange connecting their image to their music. Chris Chew? No problem. Blues guy written all over him. Luther and Cody? Well, they look more like they belong in a cubicle somewhere writing code.
Speaking of Cody. He was missing. Seems he went back to the tour bus. So Mike takes us out to the tour bus. Cody comes stumbling out of the bus to say hi and sign covers.
That pretty much covered the "meet & greet." Like I said; fun, but strange...
We decided to eat at Starr Hill and had a great dinner there. After eating, we decided to take a walk down to the Plan 9 on the Corner to kill some time before the show.
The opening act was Steel Train. They were ok, I guess. Didn't do much for me. Very young and enthusiastic.
NMAS came on, and a very strange thing happened. Luther and Cody no longer gave the impression of being geeks. They were in their element. Cody starts wailing away on his drums and just seems to lose himself in it. Luther knows from blues guitar. And Chris Chew is unreal. Huge, left handed bass player in a sport coat and bucket cap. These guys really put on a show. Fantastic music. They are the real deal. And how many shows have you seen where the guitarist gets on the drums and the drummer picks up an electrified freakin' washboard and goes to town on it in a way that would make Mickey Hart's heart go all pitter-patter. I was pretty slack-jawed at that.
You get a bit of everything from this band as far as influences. From gutter bucket juke joint styles to Allman Brothers jamming, they've got it covered. They even did a crowd pleasing cover of ZZ Top's La Grange that just flat rocked out. In fact, that's what lead into the electric washboard thing.
Two white guys and a black guy playing the best blues/rock/jams I've heard in a long time? That's good.
What's Good?
Well, The Lady took me out to dinner last night. Haven't been to Mas in awhile. Oh, man. Sometimes, we just need a major tapas fix...
Wildcat Cove oysters from the Pacific Northwest on the half-shell, fava beans sauteed with sofrito and sherry, hot smoked ribs with mango sauce, calamari ala plancha with with romesco and Moroccan spice rubbed grilled chicken with mojo verde over housemade flatbread.
Yowza. Washed it down with Cristalino Rosada Cava and an awesome Priorat red whose name escapes me right now.
And all that was preceded with a productive run out to Tuesday Morning and weekend grocery shopping at the new Hollymead Harris Teeter (garlic and herb stuffed roast leg of lamb, anyone?).
What's Good?
The Lady, that's what.
What's good? I'll tell you what's good. Having a smooth day at work after the Murano Glass Bowl Incident, selling out of specials and having The Lady take me out to dinner at C'ville's really neat South African restaurant, The Shebeen.
The Lady and I had not been there before and we're feeling a little dumb because of it. It really was fantastic. They bill themselves as a South African style pub, but it's way more sophisticated than that. Nice atmosphere of wood and stone with beamed ceilings. You would never know you're underneath a Staples. Service was friendly and attentive, even on a Friday night. I would recommend a reservation.
The Lady had the Calamari to start. This was a nice twist on the usual; chili marinaded calamari battered with a light tempura. Crisp and tender. Very nice.
I started with Samosas, which turned out to be a great fusion of tastes and cultures in a fried triangle. Smaller and less dense than the Indian version, it reminded me more of a Jamaican Pattie; ground meat with a very aromatic and slightly sweet seasoning. Perhaps a touch of tamarind. It was served with a mango chutney and a little salad.
For an entree, The Lady had Sosatie, which turned out to be a rosemary skewer each of pork and lamb that had been marinaded for a day or so in mango chutney and then grilled. Fabulous. It was served with yellow rice and green lentils as well as mango chutney and cucumber - mint yogurt on the side.
I had Bobotie. Frankly, I've never had anything quite like it before. It was superb. Bobotie is Boer meatloaf. No, really. I'm in ecstasy over a meatloaf. Not just any meatloaf, mind you. Bobotie is a blend of ground beef and lamb, raisins, apples, almonds and curry. When the whole loaf is roasted, it is topped with a savory egg custard which develops this neat crust on top. The plate had two huge slices of Bobotie with a half inch layer of this custard at the top of each slice. It was topped with a warm tomato relish and was served with some truly excellent mash(ed) potatoes and vegetable melange. Yummy. Very yummy.
We passed on dessert and had coffee. The intention had been to have dinner and a movie, but we skipped the movie and came home to a "dessert" of Ardbeg single malt scotch.
And that's good.
What's good? How about this?
The Lady takes me to dinner at Le Petit Poi. She starts with Onion Soup and moves on the Cassoulet special, while I go for the Steak Tartare (did you know that it's technically illegal to serve Steak Tartare in Virginia? As of next week, it's off the menu, according to our waiter...) followed by Bouillabaisse. We accompany this with Kir Royals and a bottle of a neat Australian red blend called The Turk. Very nice.
The Lady and I cap it off with coffee, Armagnac (me), Scotch (her) and a shared Chocolate Mousse.
And this was all done outside on a rather cool evening next to one of those nifty gas powered outdoor heaters. Quite comfortable.
After settling the check, we got up and walked about 30 yards to the Paramount Theater, where we spent the next 2 magical hours with the David Grisman Quintet. Grisman, over the last three decades, has crafted an amazingly unique musical style simply known as Dawg. It really is insufficient to refer to it simply as "bluegrass jazz" or "jazz mandolin." Both The Lady and I were mesmerized by the improvisations put forth by these guys. It's a pretty cool combination: Mandolin, guitar, upright bass, flute (!) and drums.
Bistro French food and Dawg music. That's good.
And as if last night was not enough...
What's good, you ask? Well...
Kebabs, rice and hummus at Sticks followed by espresso (encore!) at Splendora's.
Then, once again with tickets courtesy of The Lady, we hit the Pavilion yet again where we hooked up with Jaz and got blasted at very close range by the musical stylings of The Pixies, complete with crowd surfing by young teens who simply did not exsist when that ole monkey went to heaven the first time around.
The Pixies have not lost their touch. And that's very, very good.
What's good?
Well, The Lady and I start off with a dinner of bacon cheeseburgers and Cajun fries at Five Guys.
Follow that with a dessert of gelato and double espressos at Splendora's on the Downtown Mall.
Then, with tickets in hand courtesy of The Lady (A gift on my 45th birthday), we stroll down to the Pavilion to partake of some of the best jams I've heard in years, supplied by the Allman Brothers Band.
Wash that down with plenty of Starr Hill Mojo (what else?) Lager.
Oh, yes. That's good. Very good.
Thank you, sweetie.
Terry's Chocolate Orange. Whack and unwrap...
The original, of course. Bittersweet, not milk chocolate.
The Lady and I getting complimentry tickets to the grand reopening of the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, featuring mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves.
The restoration of the Paramount is phenominal. Everything they've done to this theater is breathtaking; shimmering with gold and silver leaf. Even the exit signs are amazing. I want one to hang on my wall. To see Denyce Graves in such a setting (with Warren Jones on piano) is something to remember.
The Lady and I were humming selections from Carmen all the way home...
Da da da DA!
Kobe beef carpaccio drizzled with truffle oil, draped over baby arugula lightly dressed with sherry vinegar. This was topped with a bit of grated, aged Mahon cheese.
Damn. It was so good.
The beef was bright pink and intensely marbled. It had been sliced from a strip loin that had been lightly seasoned on the outside and flash seared, which subtly changed the flavor dynamic of the raw beef.
I would take a bite into my mouth and place it on my tongue, not unlike a communion wafer (and with just about the same amount of reverence...). There it would warm as the first rich taste sensations began to take hold, sensations that went pretty much out of control as I chewed this lovely flesh. At one point, I was actually whimpering with joy. What a flavor and texture! Pure, outrageous culinary sex.
Kobe beef is to, say, Black Angus what first rate Beluga caviar is to shad roe.
The Lady loved it, as well. She had a Muga Blanca Rioja with it, while I sipped an Allende Rioja.
We did have other things to eat before the Kobe beef: Air cured lomo with Manchego, fried fava beans with sherry, tomatoes and smoked peppers, cornmeal crusted goat cheese fried in olive oil over a red pepper coulis, fingerling potatoes roasted in duck fat and served with sel gris and plenty of wood baked bread and olive oil.
And that's all good...
Mas and Chef Tomas outdid themselves this evening.
Y'know, sometimes a meal can be sublime. After the T-day weekend blowout, I felt dinner should be the opposite of turkey. By the way, I'm sick of turkey. I mean, really. Who really likes the damn bird. I don't care what Ben Franklin said about them. I don't care what I do with them, I just don't really like them. The closest I've ever come to finding nirvana with a turkey was when I first got into the biz. Back at Leathercoat, we would take Wild Bloody Turkeys and bone the damn things out and do a heavenly roulade with them (help me out here, Tim...). Damn fine turkey. But still turkey.
Which brings me to dinner tonight.
Start with manchego and Soria chorizo go go with cocktails. Manhattan for me and Aberlour on the rocks for The Lady.
Follow that with oven roasted Merguez sausage sizzling in Spanish extra virgin olive oil, Patatas Bravas (spicy roasted potatoes...) smothered in aioli and a pound of garlic marinated gulf shrimp, also oven roasted. Plenty of crusty ABC bread to sop up the juices. An Allende Rioja 2000 to wash it down. And top it all off with a nice glass of 1975 Pedro Ximenez Jerez for dessert.
What was that about turkey?
