Day 122: The Max and Irma's of vegetarian food

Down the street from my house lie many restaurants and bars, most of which I have tried several times and few of which remain a mystery to me.  However, one of the newer places to nosh in Central Square, Veggie Galaxy, was a first for me this evening.  After work was our final dress rehearsal for the Mercury Chorus at Sanders Theatre, which was pretty cool.  Got to see a bit “behind-the-scenes”, and singing from the stage was great – it’s got a very interesting lay-out, and the building is beautiful on the inside and out.

I was starved after practice, and D. joined me to wander the streets looking for tasty fare. When the first place he suggested was closing (we realized it was already after 10p), I asked whether that veggie place might still be open – and it was.  Its interior is darling – 50s-style diner, done very tastefully.  We sat in one of the booths placed right in the center (the kind that would drive T. wild, with no side of the booth to the wall).  Even though D. was on-record as not being hungry, he still managed to finish half of  the veggie pot pie that I ordered (which I thought was delicious).

After dinner, I headed out solo to Charlie’s Kitchen to meet up with a group that had convened for T.’s birthday festivities.  Didn’t stay too long, but it was a good scene at another of the diners nearby.  It’s a rare occasion that we experience the diner atmosphere as we usually choose to sit in the beer garden outside in the summer, but it was raining tonight, so the corner table upstairs did us just fine (one of my favorite little spots in Harvard Square – many a nice evening with friends spent there).

Day 45: The best grilled cheese

Recently I haven't been cooking very much.  Once in a while I'll do a cooking night with a friend, and we make an attempt to try something new each time.  So far we have only had great results, leading me to believe that cooking is nowhere near as hard as I think it is -- but somehow I always find that come dinner time, hunger has found me all of a sudden, long after I should have in theory started to prepare a meal.

All of this goes to say -- sometimes when you want a grilled cheese sandwich (even though it is perhaps one of the easiest hot meals to prepare, ever), you gotta go find one in the urban jungle, and not in your own kitchen.  And by sometimes, I mean an embarrassingly high proportion of the time, in my case.

I try to keep this blog thing upbeat, but the story of today is that after having purchased and eaten a perfectly delicious grilled cheese at Charlie's, our crew relocated briefly to the Cellar, and this gal was faced with a sad fact: the best grilled cheese in Cambridge had evaded me for the evening.  I find the Cellar to be one of the most charming pubs in Cambridge -- nice restaurant on top, basement (but not dungy) bar on the bottom.  But hands-down, the best thing about the place is their perfect combo of tomato soup and the best-grilled, cheesiest sandwich in the 'hood.  But never fret, for there were wiser souls alongside who avoided the trap, and even offered up some of the soup to share.

Goal: perfect a home-made version of this meal before next winter.

Day 25: Shay's

Something like two or three weeks ago, I was at Charlie's Kitchen with T. & H., and someone mentioned that Charlie's was not the only bar in Harvard Square with an outdoor seating area.  Charlie's has a huge beer garden, but apparently, there was another location called Shay's which had a smaller, but nice, outdoor area or porch.

H. claimed to really like Shay's; T. abhorred it. I couldn't quite understand whether it was supposed to be divey or classy - T. said it was a "shit show", H. said it was a "lovely wine bar." You can imagine my confusion and intrigue. 

When my roommate suggested we go there after work today, I leapt at the chance. It turns out, both friends were right: Shay's is a cozy, cluttered, basement-level bar with steps leading up to a small outdoor patio.  The night was chilly, so few people were out, making the inside even more cramped.  Honestly it was what I felt like one of the bars in Diagon Alley might have felt like -- everything lopsided.  For looking like such a dive, though (in such a wonderful way, mind you), there was quite an extensive wine list, and prices weren't cheap.  I'll have to explore more thoroughly, soon.

Day 18: The Beer Garden

I know I have mentioned it in a number of posts, but the beer garden at Charlie's Kitchen is the real show-stealer in Harvard Square. From what I hear, it is actually one of two locations in H. Square with outdoor seating in the summer, though also from what I hear, the other place "is a shitshow."  I supposed I'll report back on that at some point this summer.

Anyhow, if it's one of those first nice spring days, it's going to be packed -- and so worth waiting for a seat. Tonight was one of those nights where someone sent out an impromptu emailing saying she'd be there at 6p, and people crawled out of the woodwork for some open-air celebration in a cozy back corner outdoors, a few of us crouching on the steps leading up to a higher-level street.  For once I didn't get my standby order - grilled cheese on white. Only two places in C-bridge top Charlie's grilled cheese, and that is only because they come with tomato soup.  It is sort of the perfect meal.

Methinks the MIT sailing pavilion will open soon... sailing is definitely on the bucket list for this summer.  I sort of want to get an actual bucket. And make a list on it. Or in it. And carry it around with me for when I have new ideas.

Day 15: Cambridge Post Office

You might think that lauding a post office is a strange way to show appreciation for one's city, but that is what is going to happen in this post. Today is April 17, but due to the 15th being a Sunday and (presumably) Patriot's / Marathon day being important enough to disallow Monday the 16th from being considered a real work day, Tax Day 2012 fell on this very date. Meaning that when I realized I was still at work at 6:45 and hadn't mailed my checks in to the IRS / Massachusetts tax office, and that the lone blue mailbox down the street already had collection at 1pm, I felt like I was probably screwed. A friend kindly let me know that the post office in Central Square had its last collection at 7pm, and I jumped in my car (affectionately know as Yoshi, or, in comparison to my green bicycle, "blue Yoshi") and hauled you-know-what down Concord from work to Mass Ave. After a brief foray into Cambridgeport in a failed attempt to find parking, I briefly stashed my car (hazards on) in a handicapped spot and sprinted to the front doors of the quite (British sense here) epic Cambridge Post Office, where a woman opened the door to my pounding, asked, "Are these stamped?", and, upon affirmation, happily took the two envelopes from me for mailing postmarked the 17th. Crisis avoided!


Apart from madly dashing around to the post office (albeit dashing with happy ending), today's other joys included waking up to find my car had been towed. Granted, I had parked in front of someone's driveway, the irony of which lies in the fact that I had also parked in front of a fence, which under normal circumstances would have been fine. Except for the fact that the fence opens, and it has a driveway behind it. Mostly I'm including this tidbit to acknowledge the fact that I do not find Cambridge to be perfect all of the time. But isn't that part of its charm? After the bus ride to Pat's Towing (of course the car had to be taken to the not-quite-walkable spot in Somerville, rather than the towing service in Cambridge just up the block), my drive in to work was also filled with some Cambridge "joy", being honked at by cars who appeared to be doing nothing other than trying to hit my car. I like that, you know -- honking just to show that really, the car should have just been running in to me, because it was too impatient.

At any rate, the end of this rather frantic day was nice, culminating in a beer outside in Charlie's Kitchen's beer garden, which I must admit I felt was rather well deserved.

Day One: Futurity

I was waiting in the doctor's office this afternoon, my Kindle recently broken and my smart phone left in the car, and I pulled out my decrepit moleskine (which has doubled as a wallet in recent months) and a pen. I like to make lists, so I started calculating exactly how many days I have left in Cambridge, MA. First I totaled up the days I'll be gone in the coming months on various trips -- home for my sister's graduation, in WV for a family reunion, in NH for the July 4 weekend, etc. -- and then I added up the remaining days in the months from April to September where I'd be around.

Wouldn't you know, the number of days was a lovely one -- 144, or the square of my favorite number. As I'm always looking for reasons to keep track of things in an organized, fun way, I decided I'd make a blog that I'd try to stick to. It will also give me a way to organize pictures from the last few months in Cambridge (and a reason to take pictures!).

I suppose I guess I'll treat this as a count-up (to the end of the 144 days), rather than a countdown. Seems more climactic that way. So, today is day 1.

And tonight I am going with some friends to a show at the ART, a place near and dear to Cantabrigians who frequent Harvard Square. The show is called Futurity, and as a friend of mine put it, it's a "futuristic, humanistic, steam-punk musical." What's not to love? There will be 12 of us in attendance tonight. I'll try to post a picture later.