Ploafmaster General

Last night was the first open-to-the-public night of service at Pasture, the new restaurant from Comfort's Jason Alley. They've been serving friends and family since last week in a limited capacity, but last night anybody could take a crack at the menu (including actor David Straithairn, who was dining alone in the booth behind my wife). I've been looking forward to this new joint for a number of reasons. I'm already a huge fan of Alley's work in Comfort. The concept makes me think of Comfort's food with Secco's format (i.e. small plates intended for sharing/sampling, but with refined Southern food in this case). And the location is in a part of town that could seriously use some evening destinations.

So Valerie and I arrived last night around 5:15 and were seated immediately. I have a feeling the weekend could be quite busy, but opening on a Wednesday on East Grace Street meant it wasn't crowded before 7. But before I talk food, I have to say - the interior of this place is freaking cool. Spare, contemporary, and open, Pasture will be loud when it's busy. But you'll want to be there. Simple furniture and bright shades of green stand out against dark, heavy wood walls on either side of the restaurant. Dangling exposed bulbs on bundled cords shed additional light along the perimeter, and the bar is lined with tall stools you'd more likely see in a wood shop. And the bar! I think there are 16 taps (only draft beer at this place), and you immediately notice two things: there are no flashy tap handles, and there is no visible liquor or wine above the bar. They serve both, of course, but the real visual emphasis is on this gloriously utilitarian row of taps on a stainless steel drip pan, set into one of the aforementioned heavy wood walls. Superb.

But I don't go to restaurants to gawk at the walls and banquettes. There's food to be eaten. And the food here is off to an exciting start! Valerie and I ordered up some of the bread, butter, and jams while we decided on additional fare, and even that was quite nice: some rustic bread accompanied by sage-honey butter (Mmmmmm...) and three jams. These jams were cranberry, fig, and a spicy green tomato-jalapeño - a nice variety. We each had a few beers from a pretty nice selection, and explored the menu a little further.

Now Valerie LOVES deviled eggs, and I hate them. Full stop. But I tell you, her little plate of deviled eggs with bits of black truffle and salmon roe on top was quite pretty. They looked like the highest order of the form, and Valerie thought they were delicious. I, on the other hand, tried out the pork rillettes. This arrived in a cute half-pint mason jar with some really good toast,and two garnishes: pickled red onion with some herb (parsley?) and "quince mustard" which was chunks of quince cooked down with mustard seed. Valerie piled some of the rillettes, onion/herb mix, and quince on some toast, and I said "it's a redneck bruschetta!" The rillettes, by the way, were super tasty without being too salty. Could have used a bit more toast, though.

Moving on from the cold to the hot, Valerie went for the fried chicken. This arrived in easy-to handle smaller chunks with a 1-cup disher of potato salad on the side. I tried some of the chicken, and while the crust was light and crispy, there wasn't a whole lot of flavor going on. Granted, I'm not naturally a fan of fried chicken, but I think this one could stand some tweaking. Valerie enjoyed the potato salad, and felt more or less the same as me about the chicken, but she still ate most of it. I ordered up the braised beef brisket with grits and turnips, and Valerie and I both agreed this was fantastic. Some of the braising liquid was on the plate and added to the flavor of everything else. The brisket was tender and moist, the grits creamy with just the right amount of texture, and the turnips richly flavorful.

Then of course we had to try dessert. And wow, these were something to behold (and taste!). Valerie had the deep fried apple pie with salted caramel and whipped crème fraîche. It looked like a classic pocket pie (or Hostess fruit pie, if you will), with a paint stroke of the caramel across the plate and two cannelles of the crème fraîche permeated with flecks of vanilla bean. Sweet mercy, it all tasted incredible. But I think I liked my dessert a bit more...the "candy bar" made with a rich chocolate ganache and filled with caramel and bits of hazelnut. There was chocolate painted on the plate and flakes of some sort of candy - maybe a hazelnut candy? - scattered across the top. A single, candied hazelnut adorned one corner of the bar. This was an absolutely stellar dessert that could hold its own against any other in the city of Richmond (and far beyond).

What a meal - and great service, too. Michelle Jones, co-owner and general manager, was making the rounds thanking and chatting-up guests, and Valerie and I had a very pleasant conversation with her at the end of our meal. She also told us that we can expect the menu to change around every month, which will certainly keep palates entertained.

Either way, I'm intrigued. And I'll be back - repeatedly!

Here's a detail shot of the wing-flexing control mechanism for Rick Young's hand-build, functional replica of a 1911 Wright test glider. This is the glider that was used to improve in-flight stability after the Wright's had already achieved powered flight years earlier.

I felt like a little kid just having the privilege of seeing this thing let alone being allowed to photograph it with my 4x5 camera.

One of the newer hot spots on the Richmond dining landscape is The Blue Goat - a restaurant beside the art house Westhampton Theater. It's a self-styled "gastropub", an appellation which hails from England where some clever restaurateurs decided to mix the atmosphere of a pub with fine dining.

So the environment at The Blue Goat is pretty cool - nice and open, plenty of exposed beams/rafters/whatever, and the kitchen visible through a window in a small, glass-enclosed private dining room. The bar, where I sat, was straightforward. There were TVs on the wall tuned to NCAA football. I can understand the desire - if this places is supposed to be a pub, patrons will want their sports. But I admit my own unfamiliarity with the dining concept made me feel a bit of cognitive dissonance at these flat panels in the middle of what is, theoretically for Richmond at least, forward cuisine. Otherwise the bartender was friendly, and I had a tasty glass of Tripel Karmeliet to boot.

How was the food? Well, I don't mean to nitpick, but when a place like this gets lots of buzz, purports to do something different in our city, and charges upscale prices, I'm not pulling punches. Now I don't have many punches to throw, but I was a bit disappointed with both food items I ordered.

First I had the house-made ravioli stuffed with braised goat, ricotta, and Swiss chard. These were dressed with sage, brown butter, and shaved pecorino. This dish sounded great, but a number of things bugged me about the execution - none more than the doneness of the pasta. Now I like "al dente", but either this pasta was undercooked or they had too much flower in their dough because it was slightly tough despite its thinness. As for the filling, I didn't catch any flavor other than the goat (didn't see ricotta inside either) - tasty, but not the only ingredient on the list. And the ravioli seemed to be swimming in brown butter. Sure, there was sage, but I couldn't pick up on its flavor (short of eating big wilted sage leaves). I'm pretty sure it was unsalted brown butter, too, with no salt added after the fact. This wouldn't be an issue, I think, if it didn't have to compete with the ravioli filling. But I felt like I was eating chewy goat ravioli in a grease puddle that occasionally had the nutty finish of brown butter. I'm not putting it that way to be snarky - that's really how the dish came across.

My second item was a pair of comically-large veal marrow bones (around 6 inches each), roasted and served with black olive tapenade, gray sea salt, and a little toasted bread. The marrow here was flavorful at the ends where it had browned considerably and came in contact with the salt, but the majority of the marrow was uninteresting. I feel like this would have worked considerably better had the bones been cut in smaller sections allowing for more browned marrow. That may just be my preference, but this is also my write-up. Just having bone marrow on the menu isn't enough to get me excited. You have to prepare it well, too.

So I know that's a bit harsh on the food front, but I'm not going to sugar coat things. This restaurant is supposed to be something new and different in an increasingly interesting Richmond food scene, and I always hope this sort of stuff succeeds in order to keep dining interesting in this town. I do plan to return in at least a few weeks to give it a second chance, however. A friend of mine who is a frequent Blue Goat patron told me they're changing their menu in about two weeks, and I'd like to see if things lighten up (there are like three pâtés on the menu right now in addition to rillettes, cassoulet, and the aforementioned marrow bones). I don't expect health food, but the menu at the time of this writing feels like an open protest against the existence of hypertension.

Oh well. I hope things are better when I check it out next time, but it'll be tough to go back and ignore my first impression. We'll see...

Time to burn that ironic "VCU Football: Still Undefeated" t-shirt. VCU club football lost its first game against the Radford University Highlanders 19-18.

Play was disorganized and undisciplined, but it was still a heck of a lot of fun to watch. Both teams squared off on the field at Thomas Jefferson High school, and in between refs yelling at VCU to step back away from the side line and players cramping up as early as the first quarter, we managed to have some football.

I have to say, there were some promising moments, though. Our quarterback, junior Mike Jones (#7), threw a few clutch passes for some big gains. And we did a great job of capitalizing on Radford's pathetic punter. Of course that same punter gave the kick of his life when it mattered most, and put VCU too far back to march down the field at the end of the 4th quarter. Desperation led to a final turnover that provided the final nail in VCU's coffin.

There were actually quite a few people there, too: around 200-ish people filling up the VCU stands and lining the fence. Chants familiar to VCU basketball fans filled the air, and the atmosphere was generally exciting. The team's website doesn't have any information about the next game, but I hope it's happening soon (and in Richmond). VCU lost, yes, and it's not NCAA-sanctioned play, but I'm just glad to see a football team for my alma mater.

That's right! I'm selling a print of my photograph "golden" (two posts below) on my Etsy shop! Check it out!

Today's the last day at my first "real" job after I graduated from VCU. I've been a database developer/analyst for Affinion Loyalty Group for the past 7 years working on points systems for credit cards. Yeah, it's as dull as it sounds :-)

But I did learn a ton from the people I worked with, and I'm glad to have been a developer for so long. On Monday I move on and leave development behind. Ah! Transition!

So here's my last shot from my San Francisco photos. Ending on an obvious note. But I really, really like this shot.

Val and I got up at 5 AM on this day, and we caught a cab in front of our hotel around 5:30 and headed to The Presidio and the south overlook. When we arrived it was only just starting to get light out, and the fog was pretty thick. It was even intermittently raining, so I had the rain cover from my bag strapped on top of the camera while it sat on the tripod. When it stopped stpitting just a bit, I managed to take a few long exposures, and this is the one I liked the most.

I may not have left my heart in San Francisco, but I do miss the place, and I hope to make it out there for a longer stretch sometime in the future.

Today is the start of my last week at first post-college job. I'm bracing myself for what could be a crazy 5 days as people scramble to reassign my work or get in their last questions before I'm off the payroll.

On the other hand, it could be a slow crawl as my work is reassigned elsewhere efficiently. Either way, I'm anxious for the transition to complete. At least I'll have my new classes starting this week to distract me a little.

Spool of cable at the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco.

The truth is, I get a lot of me time. I get me time whenever I put off taking out the trash. Whenever I curse at a negligent driver from my car. Whenever I'm mean to my wife. Whenever I eat too much. You see, I get me time whenever I give in to my selfish desires. And the problem is that the ego is insatiable. That's why screaming at somebody never really makes you feel better. That's why that next doughnut doesn't taste as sweet. And that's why procrastinating just leads to loafing on the couch surfing the web while an unwatched TV flickers in the background. The common notion of me time where I get to do what I want, for myself? Yeah, I think I get plenty of that already, and I've already said where that leads.

So I want to try and keep the me time in check. I want to, instead, make room for a little stillness time. Time when I can sit, disconnected, uninterrupted.

Be still and know that I am God. - Psalm 46:10

Eep! I didn't write yesterday.

Two weeks from today is my last day at my current office. I'm starting to offload responsibilities and trying to wrap up whatever I have left on my plate. But I'm fearing the last week will run interminably slow as I try to find things to occupy my time. I could be wrong - it may be that everybody will try to get their pound of flesh before I make it out the door. But I think they've managed things better than that in the past, so we'll see.

So that's clearly at the top of my mind right now. That makes it more than a little difficult to focus on the school work I still have to finish. I need to wrap up a huge paper for my independent study by the end of this weekend, so I don't anticipate making it out of doors too much in the intervening hours. I'll feel a lot better about that if we actually get the thunder storms I've been hearing about.

Oh, final strange note: this morning I stopped in for coffee at Lamplighter, as is my custom, and I saw a freaking Aston Martin DB9 parked in the lot. I, in fact, parked next to it, sure to give it ample clearance. Not every day you park next to a car that is 6-digits more expensive than your house!

So not only did I get a job offer last Thursday while in San Francisco, but later that very day I ventured out into a quieter, more residential part of the city to check out Brown Owl Coffee, the shop mentioned a number of times by Merlin Mann on Back to Work. Val and I ran in to Merlin himself as soon as we got off the light rail, and he was super friendly. Highlight of the day for my wife and I (she also listens to Back to Work). Anyway, Val got a picture of Merlin and I, and he tweeted the link. Gruber retweeted Merlin, and now it's suddenly on track to be the most viewed picture on my photo stream in the near future (though it still has a long way to catch up to this one).

And Merlin is a good hugger, FYI.

Goodness, so much to discuss.

First of all, yes. I haven't written in a while. That's because I didn't feel like blogging while on this short vacation. But man, was it a cool vacation. San Francisco! Temperatures never made it above the mid-60s the entire trip, and we had frequent fog and cloudiness. But I loved it. The respite from the brutal Virginia heat was right up my alley. I also loved the city itself. Super hilly, but covered extensively by public transportation. MUNI may be a joke to San Franciscans, but compared to the GRTC it was golden.

I only wish I'd been able to travel with fewer people - maybe just my wife - so I could have avoided touristy things most of the trip. I also wish, in retrospect, that I'd stayed in Sunset or Haight instead of by Union Square. YEESH...that part of town is dripping with tourists who just want to shop and ride the cable cars. But I did manage to make it out to Brown Owl Coffee on Taraval which was super freaking delicious. More on that in a follow-up post later today...

Oh yeah, and this past Thursday, while waiting in the Hilton lobby, I got a phone call with a job offer.

I'd been communicating pretty heavily with a company here in town, and things had been going well. This all culminated in an interview on Tuesday after work but before my flight to SFO. It seems they liked me, and they extended an offer. I accepted, but since I couldn't formally resign at my current employer until I was back at work today, I've been quiet about it on the internet. But now the cat is out of the bag. I start at my new job on 8/29. First new company in seven years...

So tonight I'm going to celebrate with a little bubbly, and then it's time for some insane amount of homework for my independent study...

Well, a short week at work, if that wasn't already implicit.

Today is jam-packed full of crap - work, which is plenty busy. School work to do when I get home. The absolute need for me to make my way down to Secco for Carytown Restaurant Week. Oh yeah, and packing for my trip tomorrow.

I have a lot going on tomorrow, too - but I can't really talk about it...yet. I hope to be able to say something about it in the near future, but time will tell. I just know it'll make for a hectic afternoon and rush to the airport so I can make it through security and get on my westward flight. Maybe I'll get to eat dinner in there somewhere...

I met up with a friend this evening after work to grab some brew at The Camel. It was already a great way to unwind from a seriously stressful week, but then there was a delightful 3-piece bluegrass band playing in the corner. They were just great - sounded like they'd played together for ages and completely brightened up the darkened tables around the bar.

Aaaaaaand...that's it for now.

No post yesterday. That's because yesterday was a bear. It ended with me writing for both school and work, going to bed near 1 AM. That about sums up why I didn't get a chance to casually write a self-indulgent blog post :-)

Today could end up being just as busy because it's just non-stop meetings, requests, lunch out, early leaving the office to take people to the airport, then more homework. Gah!

This is my small gasp for air.

I have neither the time nor the mental capacity this evening to say much about my day beyond two things:

1. I received my wide angle lens today. It's a 50mm lens, which is like a 24mm lens on a 35mm camera. It's pretty wide. I love it!

2. I am making an awesome dinner tonight - another batch of my made-from-scratch smoked gouda macaroni and cheese with crispy Serrano ham.

That's it for now. I have some photos to touch up and some dinner to cook.

I watched Bridesmaids at The Byrd Theater in Richmond on Saturday night. I was looking forward to it - directed by Paul Feig, staring Kristin Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and several other talented actors/actresses. And you know what? It was fairly funny. The acting was terrific (especially Melissa McCarthy and Maya Rudolph). But I had a hard time watching this movie.

It's not because the movie was crass (boy, though, was it crass). It's not because of a ridiculously contrived plot (it was straightforward enough). It was because Bridesmaids is humiliation comedy. Humiliation comedy is my term for movies where much of the humor revolves around on character unfairly taking the blame for a demoralizing series of mishaps, a la Meet the Parents. That sort of comedy ties my stomach in knots because I end up empathizing with the protagonist, wishing she would just utter one or two sentences that could easily clear up the tiny misunderstanding that lead to monumental problems.

I suppose in Bridesmaids the humiliation was for the sake of piling on misery to an already downtrodden character, making her restoration that much more dramatic. But that's cheap; an artificial means of creating strife between the lead and those close to her.

There are some other issues I had with the movie, like the weak reliance on aerial establishing shots of Milwaukee and Chicago (Hey! Landmarks! Now you know where this act takes place!), and some ideological quibbles, but those would've knocked off maybe a star at most from my rating. Yet with a structure that caused me to tense up anticipating the next embarrassing plot contrivance, I just can't give this movie more than 3/5.

So today's writing actually comes tomorrow, but seeing as I typically don't write on Saturdays, I suppose that's okay. Tonight was the perfect end cap to the week. Was I bar-hopping? Well, not really, since three places hardly qualifies as bar-hopping. But I started out with a simple bowl of cereal for dinner followed by a Perfect Manhattan at Balliceaux, a dessert and Aviation at Can Can, and some quality beer and macarons at Secco. Oh yeah, and some fine champagne to celebrate 10 years with my lovely wife (from the day I asked her out, not our wedding anniversary).

All this was welcome distraction because today was a day longer than it should have been. Fraught with issues related to misunderstandings, client demands, and catching up on slipped deadlines (which slipped because of higher priority work), I felt like Friday would never end. But it did, and it ended with a bang. Hitting several of my favorite spots in one night out with my wife and her sister, I managed to ease out of the boiling hot Friday into weekend mode. Too bad tomorrow appears to be another smoker.

Well, here's to the weekend. I'll get coffee in the morning and brunch near noon. And limited responsibility other than that. My kind of weekend.

Sippin' on a Staropramen, absolutely blasting my music through the stereo. The Genius playlist on the Apple TV is serving me well this go 'round.

It's hot as CRAP outside today, and I wish I didn't have to go out again, but I must, so I will when dinner time rolls around. I guess I really wish it was cooler so I could use this great sunlight we have to make more photographs, but such is life.

Speaking of making photographs, I decided to get a wide-angle lens for my RZ67, especially considering I'll be traveling soon. So I'll carry 50mm and 110mm lenses with me to San Fran, the equivalent of a 24mm and 53mm lens in 35mm format, respectively. I'm really hoping to be able to get in more shooting before I go, but I tell ya; if this heat keeps up I'll be parked inside in the air conditioning.

Oh, would you look at that! My download of Lion for this laptop has finished (installed last night on the iMac), so it's time to upgrade.

(Post Script: Today I had a few THOUSAND page views from several HUNDRED unique visitors...what gives? If you're reading here for the first time, hit me with a comment. What brought you here?)

I'm seriously wiped out. I was up nearly until 2 AM working on a paper. It's my own doing - this, the result of my procrastination - so I'm not complaining. Simply stating the fact that I am actually wiped out.

Here are some more unaffiliated facts that are also not complaints but hew perilously close to so being: It's hot as a furnace outside and will be through the weekend at least. July tired quickly of its amazingly days last week and decided to bring back the hotness. Makes it a bit tough to be outside and walk around taking pictures...

This item's a mixed bag: today marks 10 years since I asked Valerie if she wanted to date me (well, technically it was after midnight, making it the 21st, but whatever. That evening's events started on the 20th). We've been together ever since - and while I stopped marking dating anniversaries years ago, I think a decade together is significant. So I want to celebrate! But tonight I have to meet with my class group to discuss our project, and Valerie has to work late to meet deadlines. I guess we'll just have some fun this weekend.

Finally, I'm going to San Francisco soon. I mentioned that already, right? I'm going to San Francisco for several days as the beginning of August. I'm meeting up with Val, her mom, and her sister; they'll already be there having driven down from Eugene, Oregon that day. I'm bringing my new beast of burden, the RZ67, with me as my only camera for shooting around. I think Valerie will have the D90 with her (since she's traveling ahead of me), but I just want to stick to film for the week. I guess that means I get to order a bunch of film :-)

Elizabeth, my sister-in-law, reclining on the upper-level steps of The Carillon.

There's not a lot I can talk about in this entry, but I'll go all "stream of consciousness" for a bit just to see what I can crank out when I really set my mind and intentions to writing.

So what's foremost in my mind right now is some news that I can't really even share on the 'net just yet, because it's not the right timing. But I did want, at least, to record my sense of anticipation for something. A journal or blog, after all, need not be a record of all the details so much as a record of the prevailing sentiment or mood at that time. I'm capturing, I hope, some sense of my personality through these entries; an endeavor far more interesting to me (and I hope others). I guess that's sort of a philosophical line in the sand wherein I'm stating that the response is more compelling than the stimuli, but that's where I'm at right now. So no details. Maybe in a month I'll get all detailed and crap, and you can try to piece together some understanding of my August 2011 psyche based on those details which I obsessively record.

Enough with all that now, though.

Tonight is the reckoning; the evening where I face just how much writing I have to crank out on a different platform - my portion of a monstrous paper for one of my summer classes. I've procrastinated long enough, but I must meet my own self-imposed (and imposed on others by me) deadline of tomorrow night and complete the draft of my section. There is, then, a small advantage to Valerie having to stay late at work. She's the most wonderful distraction, so it's tough for me to accomplish much while we're both at home, even in different rooms.

So there it is: my Tuesday, laid bare. Dissect it as you wish!

Oh yes, I'm still writing today.

Not that I really have much to say. My weekend was pretty awesome and I wasn't too bothered by that insipid Blackberry. I was able to spend some time last night showing Valerie how to use my old Mamiya C3 medium format camera, and we both basically spent a while photographing her sister on the upper level of the Carillon tower (uploads coming soon). Tonight we'll have a simple breakfast-for-dinner meal before heading out to see the final Harry Potter film.

Scant though that may seem, that's all there is to it for now. But I'll be back. I just can't help myself.