weekend update: november 16-18

Here chez Shepard, we enjoyed a spectacular, stress-free weekend. Here are the highlights:

Friday night
John and I met my friend Tracy, her beau Bill, and her friends Heather and Rusty for dinner at Brasa, Alex Roberts’ other restaurant. The menu features locally grown chicken, cooked on a rotisserie, and Berkshire pork, which has been slow-roasted for twelve hours until there’s not a scrap of fat or connective tissue remaining. It was smoky and soft and amazingly good. And it had crispy bits. The chicken was moist and flavorful, too, but it didn’t hold a candle to the pork. In addition to the meat, Brasa serves up Southern sides, such as garnet yams with chorizo sausage, collard greens, cornbread, and fried plantains—all of which we ate—as well as cheesy grits, creamed spinach, fried yucca, and others which we’re saving for our next visit.

After dinner we saw Sharon Jones at First Ave. She wailed. Led by guitarist Binky Griptite, the Dap-Kings warmed up the sold-out show (Jones’ first) with a little soul revue. The Sharon Jones took the stage and rocked the house for an hour and a half. She did the cover of "What Have You Done for Me Lately" from her first album, Dap-Dippin’, which sounded nothing like Janet Jackson’s version from the 80s, and a mix of songs from her new and previous albums. We missed the encores because we needed to spell the sitter. Overall, a great date night.

Saturday
John and I let the boys gorge themselves on TV while we slept until 10. Yes, I know. It was totally decadent. Sleeping in usually doesn’t go past 8 a.m., but sometimes you’ve just got to get caught up on sleep. The kids certainly didn’t mind. After we dressed, we all headed out to run errands—fun errands.

First stop, our inaugural visit to the Midtown Global Market. This public market features shops and restaurants, spanning a variety of ethnic groups—East African, West Indies, Latino, Hmong, Scandinavian, and Middle Eastern, among others. It’s somewhat chaotic, but colorful, and occupies the former Chicago-Lake Sears, which is an enormous building and must have been something in its day. The boys ate burgers and fries at an outpost of Andy’s Garage, while I grabbed a sandwich from Manny’s Tortas—a cubana with everything (pork cutlet, ham, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos, pickles, and chipotle mayo on a hero roll). I loved my sandwich. We visited our acquaintance (Ly Vang) who runs the Hmong Handicrafts booth at the St. Paul Farmer’s Market and also has a store here. And, we stocked up on shrimp chips and Pocky at a United Noodle outpost.

Then we crossed Chicago to Uncle Edgar/Uncle Hugo to stock up on books for our Thanksgiving trip. Uncle Edgar/Uncle Hugo is a treasure trove of new and used mystery and science fiction books with a smattering of the unexpected in between (games, puzzles, and general interest books). Owner Don Blyley and mystery buyer Jeff Hatfield were among the most knowledgeable and passionate booksellers I met with when I was a publisher’s rep, and it’s also a pleasure to shop in this incredibly well-stocked store.

I picked up Jay MacLarty’s follow up to The Courier, Bagman, which I plan to read aloud to John on our eight-hour drive to So Dak later this week. Also Modesty Blaise, a campy take on the British spy novel with a sexy female spy. John found a few medieval mysteries, and Simon picked up a great-looking junior mystery that promises adventure with sleuthing, a good combination for him.

Next, we took the long way around Minneapolis to get to Nordeast. Destination: Surdyk’s. The wine and fancy foods store was hosting yet another sale, and we thought we’d stock up on wine for Thanksgiving. Us and everyone else in Minneapolis. The store was unpleasantly crowded, which made for difficult navigating with a shopping cart. And kids. I know. What were we thinking? We bought the last bottle of L de Lyeth meritage-style cabernet, a bottle of Valpolicella, some Nicolas Feuillante (our favorite champagne), and a bottle of Highland Park scotch.

Last errand: Target. To buy the little one his very own Nintendo DS. Big brother has one, but Winston has been very cool about watching and waiting. He hasn’t asked for his own—in fact, he doesn’t even ask to play with Simon’s game. But, we thought we’d get him his own so the boys can keep themselves occupied during the eight-hour drive to and the mind-numbing boredom of our Thanksgiving destination.

We wrapped up our day with wine and nibbles (cheese, olives, saucisson sec, and a truly tasty leek tart) at Colin and Helena’s house.

Sunday
We tend to do our grocery shopping on Sunday mornings, when the faithers are in church. Simon accompanied me this morning—he’s a good helper so it was a pleasure. We also grabbed a bagel bundle and a small lox at Bruegger’s, then headed home to have breakfast with John and Winston. After breakfast, John and I set up our laptops (John’s setting up his sexy, small new number [Lenovo X61 Thinkpad] with a fake Mac interface—I don’t know how the tech geeks do these things) in the hope of getting some work done, but the little boys were having none of it. John took them up to Groveland to play football. Here’s his account:

So today,

Jen wanted an hour of peace, so I grabbed the nerf football and walked to the playground with Simon and Winston. Mostly Win wanted to play on the jungle gym (he's a regular primate on the monkey bars). Simon, on the other hand wanted to throw the football. He can't really catch it yet, but he can throw a good spiral.
After a while Win came over to play with Simon and me. We defined a field, and I teamed up with Winston. The score was 2 to 1 for Winston and me when Simon threw the ball to our end and Win picked it up to run back. I set up to block Simon and he came running towards us. He came right at me with his arms out, and I set up with my forearms in front of me to block him. Well, he was running a little too fast, and I was blocking a little to hard, and the next thing we knew Simon was on the ground with a bloody lip. The boy is only 8 years old, what was I doing? Of course Winston didn't notice at all and went on to score. After I picked Simon up (blood dripping from his mouth onto the ground) and calmed him down (getting the blood all over my sweat shirt), we made the unanimous decision to call it a day. Simon seemed O.K., but by now it was dawning on Winston that this was a big thing and he kept going over it, and over it. I was willing to talk Winston through it, but Simon just wanted to get home and move on.

Luckily by the time we got home and got Simon washed up, our local library had opened up and we were able to distract ourselves with a new activity. In the end, everyone was O.K., and I will be A LOT MORE careful when playing with the boys.

I checked out a bunch of great books from the library—Not a Girl Detective by Susan Kandel, Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee, Suffer the Little Children by Donna Leon (this is on the Conversation with Books list for January), Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon (that’s two books from him this year—how does he do it?), and Italian Two Easy, a cookbook from London River Café’s Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers. I know. When am I going to read these?

As if the weekend couldn’t get better, I spent the later afternoon tinkering over a long-cooking dinner—beef goulash from Cooks Illustrated’s Best Recipe. I wanted to make something that would give us leftovers for lunch in the upcoming short week. This beef stew delivered with tender meat, carrots, and red peppers enlivened by paprika and cooked slowly, creating an incredibly rich broth, which we served over egg noodles. Can’t wait for lunch tomorrow.

I’m glad we had a chance to recharge and reconnect. My two-day workweek is going to be another absurdly busy one, and I’m determined not to get too stressed out over looming deadlines. On Wednesday, we’re all heading for Winner, South Dakota, the pheasant capital of the world, to celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents and brother Nik.

I’ll try to get a post or two off before we hit the road. I doubt we’ll have a wi-fi connection in remote So Dak, but I’m open to being surprised.