relbbaddoof

Hope the orange chimp enjoyed the taste of blue defeat. I've no skin in the game -- American sports baffle me.

This may interest you: https://www.portlandmuseum.org/exhibitions/winslow-homer-painter-etcher/

Thanks. Hot Suppa was on our radar, given its closeness to PMA.

We also stumbled upon (knowledge of) the Kotzschmar Organ yesterday through a PBS piece on Anna Lapwood, but they have nothing scheduled in the near future, nor tours of the instrument. Portland is increasingly proving a city of delights. Soon after we partially relocated to Cambridge, MA, in the early 1990s we spent a few days in Ogunquit, then checked Maine off our list. A mistake, one of many we routinely make.

Yes, we are art fans, and my wife started a second career a few years ago as an oil painter. (She's been in shows.) We were aware of the Winslow Homer connection to PMA, and love seeing artist's studios & homes, but in the days we are to be in Portland there were no openings. Still, as we have now noted, Portland is a short, inexpensive train ride from Boston, so there will be other visits I am sure. On another note: Do you, or anybody else, have views on the gelato options in Portland (somebody I highly respect swears by Gorgeous Gelato) and, on yet another note, any views on the bbq options in town or the Cambodian, Thai, etc. offerings. Portland packs a more diverse set of offerings in its 1-2 square miles than possibly all of Greater Boston.

Well, I'll be lunching there in a couple of weeks but I'll have nothing to compare it to, so I hope I won't be disappointed. I also have dinners at Eventide, Scales, Twelve and Street and Co.

Undoubtedly the accent. My students savage me lately for mine.

I love these sporty threads. Apart from "is", "a", "the", and (of course) "bad" I understand nothing.

Why not?

Odd fish though. Just look at his recent milquetoast "analysis" of why his party is failing.

So do I. But while yours is probably a hardcover "original" mine is a cheap paperback reprint. In my quest to inflict on my wife a reading-aloud of the full Wodehouse oeuvre I have tried to augment my original Penguins with spiffier new editions -- Overlook Press and Everyman mainly. I don't always succeed and have to make do with what I can. Reading everything in order and on time is important to my wife's orderly mind (and mine). Already we are in the throes of a domestic crisis because I left behind in NY yesterday Jeeves in the Offing (aka How Right You Are, Jeeves) with a few remaining chapters, and we were forced to prematurely begin Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves. Returning from my woes to the matter at hand, the 1923 Jeeves was retitled The Inimitable Jeeves at some point. The copy I was forced to get is from some outfit called Bumbershoot Books (P.O. Box 7, Cedar Lake, MI 48812), with all the tight binding and narrow margins you might expect from a bumbershoot. But it has the huge plus of offering a glossary, as you might expect from any book in a foreign or technical language. In the interest of educating the millions of louts who populate this group, I offer a few of their clarifications: Collar: Verb: to "take by the collar" Jamboree: A party, loud boisterous revelry. Oolong: A Chinese tea that is dark in color. Rummy: Odd or strange.

@Wilfrid It was a steal at $13,000. Hope you grabbed it.

Not to play favorites, but both dishes above look excellent.

TJ's?

He wrote those when he was 97? That's impressive. Missing commas aside, I was aware of Deighton growing up, possibly through Funeral in Berlin, possibly Bomber. But my wife and I became intensely involved in his work through his Berlin Game, Mexico Set, London Match trilogy. Then followed the Spy Hook-Line-Sinker trilogy and we gamely kept at it. But, after that, followed his final books Faith-Hope-Charity and we hadn't the charity to continue.

Every such cookbook has an associated "T" dinner. Here's hers: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/t-magazine/tanya-bush-tea-party.html Note to the NYT: If @Orik invites me to dinner at his pad with Burger King whoppers* and fries as the main course, will you cover it? I'm sure he can supply mismatched stools and suchlike, and intellectual heft. I'll be the ugly face in the background. * My wife, as oblivious to america as is possible for someone brought up in Queens, once walked into a McDonald's and insisted on a whopper.

He's been hiding in plain sight all along at Saar in Hell's Kitchen with excellent kebabs and mediocre everything else. I hope this joint is better overall.

Celeste is a lactic set cheese, which uses long, natural fermentation. Gossamer is a pasteurized milk cheese. They were both introduced by Cato in 2022 and I have had them side by side many times. Celeste is less complex (as an early Cato announcement said "patience is the highest priority", but patience here may be the highest virtue). It is still an interesting counterpoint to the more Camembert-inclined Gossamer.

They're interesting when juxtaposed.

Lily Rabe was Portia in the 2010 Merchant and she returned to the Park in 2012 in a Southern-inflected As You Like It. This time our friends and we did as you did and shelled out a sensible $1000 each to become "Summer Pardners" and get tickets. There were thunderstorms that night, with stops in the production, but that was its own adventure. I still have the plastic ponchos we hastily purchased there that night. PS: Ponchos are only good if you have them with you. On the evening of April 26, 2025, I didn't. I had passed up on the Philippe Pacalet wine dinner at Foxface that evening (although I did dine there 5 days later), because a friend was conducting a concert at Carnegie Hall. I was early when I got there, so wandered to the Park to read for a bit -- when the sky suddenly turned dark and threatening, and equally suddenly rain came pouring down. By the time I found shelter I was a soaking mess. I've always thought Ori responsible for this punishment for choosing music over wine.

You move (and marry) in exalted circles. (Note to self: Cultivate @Steve R. as much as you can. Remember to mention the Rainy Night House.) ETA: We saw your pal F.MA do his own more restrained take on Shylock between our two takes of Al P.

Do tell. OK, @SteveR, you've accused me on that other site of paying you no attention. So I honor your announcement of Chez N's demise by boring everybody here with my stories of it. It is 2009 and a young(er) man with stars in his eyes (OK, actually the cosmos) and dreams in his heart has just channeled his inner Martha Stewart (and her formula for chalkboard paint) and painted a golden chalkboard on a wall of his new Hell's Kitchen pad. Here he hopes to do such calculations as he can. Requiring sustenance he stumbles across Chez N on the next block. Fortified with their liver he returns to his chalkboard. There were brains on the menu, too, but our hero conceitedly -- and mistakenly -- thought he had enough of his own to solve his problem. This relationship with the restaurant and its kitschy jigsaw puzzle walls continues off and on for the next 15ish years. One more example and I'll quit. It is 2010 and Al Pacino is to be Shylock in the Park. At 5:00 a.m. our group arrives at the Park to find the line curving around it. We bravely stand there, inch forward, and at 1 pm we are told they are sold out. (Still, at huge expense, we see Pacino reprise the role on Broadway twice -- once at the start, and one once at the end.) But, to return to Chez N we consoled ourselves with cassoulet there the night of our disappointment, plus souffle.

You better be careful what you call "chicken curry" around these here parts, pardner. There's a serious injun lurkin'.

Complicated, but still a moderately greatish man. My wife worked strenuously on the Dukakis campaign. I didn't. Don't know why, but he didn't excite me. Plus, I'd already been stopped by an immigration agent under the regime of Heil Gipper! and was reluctant on a temp visa, as I was then, to further jeopardize myself. But we'd often commiserate on how Jesse would have done so much better. Such innocent times, those, yet another step down toward our present ghastliness when Bush Sr. won.

You should read MF more often.