Food and shopping

Am exhausted after dashing about NYC for 11 and a half hours today... But first:

Last night my friend Vincent, who'd just flown in from Paris for an unexpected visit (unfortunately a friend of his is dying of cancer that's taken a sudden turn for the worse), called and I met him for dinner and some both processing and distraction.

We went to Dok Suni, even though I was also supposed to go there for brunch today. It turns out this was a Good Thing to have done, because Dok Suni, it turns out, is only open for dinner, never for lunch. Oops.

We had some rice tubes in red pepper sauce for an appetizer, and I had the jap che. I've never managed to cook it myself, my potato noodles always stay so gummy-bear-like (too chewy) and my sauces are nowhere near as yummy.

This morning, I sat with my father and sister as they had breakfast in the restaurant, Cafeteria, at the base of my building, where they eat every Saturday before hitting the Housing Works and the Angel Street thrift stores on 17th between 7th and 6th. (My dad had already hit the flea markets on 6th in the mid-20s earlier in the morning.) My sister went crazy buying boots, although they did look very nice, and most were only $10 each, They wanted me to buy this three-quarter-length brown shealing coat, but I don't like shealing, and in the end I passed despite their protestations.

Dashed across town to meet with mroctober and his friend acriedel (it turns out blackholly couldn't make it :-<) and we wound up going to Dojo on St. Mark's, since Dok Suni was closed.

Then Vincent called again and I met him down at Canal street. We went wandering around Chinatown, and I bought two really nice japanese mugs, and also two very nice (but did I really need them?) rice bowls, at this Chinese grocery where we browsed, boggled, made fun of and made faces at all sorts of weird food items. Should you ever want to buy ox penis (more delicately referred to as pizzle) I can now recommend a store. They also had cans of hard boiled quail eggs, and all sorts of unidentifiable vegetables... And pickled greenjackfruit and other weird pickled things.

The rest of the day was split between tea and books, but I'll give them each separate posts.

I had worn one of the new pair sof shoes, which looked great, but walking around so much in stiff new leather... Ouch! My feet and knees are so sore now. So I came home and have just been vegetating. Made a can of soup for dinner. I've been tryign various veggie soups fromt he supermarket since I've been back, but none have been worth repeating. (Some, had I known how they'd taste, I would not have opened the can even...)

Tea

Sara had asked me to pick up some teas from Ten Ren, which she used to drink when she lived in Taiwan and which are unavailable in Europe. There are three Ten Ren stores in NYC, though. I also wanted to buy a box of their ginger tea, which I'd had at a Chinese restaurant around the corner from my grandmother.

So we wandered over there, and I bought lots of teas, some high mountain oolong and all sorts of other things for Sara. Then we went next door to their new teashop.

Now, I'd never really heard of bubble tea until earlier in the week. catnyp had suggested we meet someplace that serves it, but it sounded like it had milk and since I'm lactose intolerant, I passed.

But at the Ten Ren teashop they had their ginger tea, without milk, but as one of these bubble teas, which it turns out means that there are tapioca balls in it. It's weird, sort of like being a kid and playing with your food. They give you these really fat straws and you have to suck up the gooey tapioca balls through them, trying not to scald your tongue while you're at it.

It's a good thing I'm so exhausted, though, because otherwise I'd probably be pretty wired from all the tea I've drunk today: a large mug of English breakfast this morning, a pot of Earl Grey at breakfast with my father and sister, a green tea with lunch, a sample of green tea at the Ten Ren motherstore and then the ginger tea with tapioca next door, and finally a Tazo citron tea while sitting with Vincent at the angelika theater waiting for his friend to show up (I passed on seeing the film with them).

OK, it's not so much in terms of quantity of liquid, since I can easily put away three liters of kukicha when I'm at home in Madrid, but I don't normally drink so many different types of tea (6) in a single day.

Todays' book haul

Most of what I bought today feels like filling in gaps to series Iv'e already started, or was waiting to start.

I bought a copy of Dorothy Gilman's KALEIDOSCOPE at the Housing Works thrift store first thing this morning. This is actually book 2 featuring a different character than her Mrs. Pollifax novels. I'd read the first Mrs. Pollifax recently and found it entertaining enough, so when I saw this in the thrift store I thought I'd take a chance on it.

Happily, later in the day I found the first book in the series, THE CLAIRVOYANT COUNTESS, so I'll now be able to read them in the proper order.

I also found a copy of Lawrence Block's HIT MAN, the book that comes before HIT LIST which I bought a few days ago.

I also found a copy of Ruth Rendell's A LEEPING LIFE, which is an Inspector Wexford novel I'd never heard of, and don't think I've read. I thought I'd gone through the entire series already, and it's possible Iv'e read it, must check my files,

I bought Tamora Pierce's PROTECTOR OF THE SMALL: PAGE because I knew I had only one of the books already, but I thought the one I had was SQUIRE. Alas, it turns out to be PAGE, so I now have a dupe. Oh well. It was a dollar.

I picked up Guy Gavriel Kay's LORD OF EMPEREROS, even though I'm missing the first part of the duology. But I figure I can find that, as well as the third part of the Finnovar trilogy, which I'm waiting to find before starting books 1 and 2 which I already have waiting in Madrid. Sara quite likes Kay, so I'll pass her the Sarantium pair when I'm done with them.

While I really disliked her non Sharon McCone novel (THE SLAIN SOLDIERS) I picked up THERE HANGS THE KNIFE which is from another non-McCone series, to see how that is.

I also bought a copy of David Feintuch's THE STILL. I've never read him, but someone recommended this to me once, although I've completely spaced on who it was or why they'd liked it (or thought I might). Has anyone read it? Was it a dollar ill-spent? ;-)

I also bought new books of poetry from three gay poets I know personally, since I already have all of their previous books: Carl Phillips' THE REST OF LOVE (FSG), Richard howard's TRAPPINGS (Turtle Point), and Scott Hightower's NATURAL TROUBLE (Fordham University Press). I still need to find Mark Bibbins' first solo collection, SKY LOUNGE.

I also picked up Deborah Garrison's A WORKING GIRL CAN'T WIN, which I'll probably give to my sister after I've read it, and a copy of LIGHT, the quarterly of light verse (which published something of mine ages ago, I haven't submitted poetry anywhere in so long, really, and thought I should see what they're up to).

Oh, almost forgot: perhaps the most interesting find today was THE VEGETARIAN TRAVELLER which is a country by country tour of europe and the Mediterranean, listing typical foods of each country that vegetarians can eat, what local specialties to always avoid because they contain meat/fish/poultry, vocabulary for how to say vegetarian-related things in the language for each country, etc. For $2 how could I go wrong?