Java Jamboree, and Oishii Village redux

First, today’s cappuccino:

Took it with insufficient light this morning, but still, a nice tight rosetta, and on not enough sleep!

Our nice and efficient housecleaner Karen was in this morning so I escaped to try, among other things, to take our Brasilia Lady, the “old” espresso machine, in for servicing, but the shop that would service it is closed for renovations. I really didn’t want to kill three hours at my office (I was just there for a PhD candidacy exam on Monday, and one visit a week is all I can handle during summers), so I decided to head to Cochrane, 18 km northwest of the city limits, and check out Java Jamboree, which I hadn’t been to in, oh, a year or so. JJ sources beans from Vivace in Seattle and Josuma in San Francisco. On past visits I’ve had a preference for the Vivace Vita espresso, but this time I decided that I’d like to buy some of Josuma’s Malabar Gold (all of Josuma’s beans are from India) at home, and what the heck, have a macchiato with that blend while I was in the shop in the thrall of their Synesso espresso machine. The very pleasant barista (whose name escapes me, but I now have the excuse of knowing that I have poor verbal memory) let me pour my latte and I mucked it up, but mm mm, JJ has the BEST macchiato, owing to a felicitous combo of bean, machine, skill, and their milk+half&half that they use for the macchiato. Delish.

The Malabar Gold isn’t earning rave reviews at home; both Brian and I agree that the Costa Rican from Mountain View discussed earlier is more our style, What the Malabar does is what it’s advertised as doing: It makes for amazing crema, an especially cool thing since my Elektra does not, by its design, make very thick crema and the body of my espresso is always on the light side with it. Not so with the Malabar. Do I like the taste? I’ll have to think about that some more.

I have to add that the drive to Cochrane was interesting and, much of it, beautiful. Rockies views there are stunning, and seeing all of the construction en route (with the upcoming LRT extension to Crowfoot Centre) was a nice distraction. Cochrane itself is, I must admit, a very cute little town. It’s nice to see some character in the communities around Calgary, because the “suburbs” in the city proper have very little, with rare exceptions.

For dinner this evening, I prodded Brian to come with me to Oishii Village [previously], and it was great! I really hope this place finds its legs- they seem to be doing a pretty good takeout biz, but it really deserves more attention. Here’s the review I posted to chowhound tonight:

I posted some initial impressions about Oishii Village (1604 14 St SW Calgary, 403-229-2881), and have been back twice since; once for a little takeout and this evening for a eat-in dinner with my partner. Favourable first impression is supported; in fact, we had an excellent meal at an amazing price.

We ordered a lot: Agedashi tofu, small mixed tempura (shrimp and veggies), nigiri of unagi, “cajun prawn,” raw beef (gyu), and inari; maki of spicy tuna, yam tempura, and teriyaki chicken.

Agedashi is 4 pieces of very delicious deep-fried tofu with four toppings, so they’re like little bruschettas: a sort of shrimp salad, smoked salmon, mushroom, and a spicy carrot-looking concoction. All were great, and a nice new take on agedashi.

Tempura was superb, aside from an undercooked yam slice. Shrimp was big and tender; veggies well prepped and a nice variety (incl a GREAT butternut squash) and the tempura batter was one of the lightest, crispiest I’ve had. A great pair of appies.

Sushi was very good. The server pointed out that I should eat the unagi first while it’s still warm- it’s not as perfect as that at Uptown but still damn good, and 50 cents less per piece ($2.50 here, $3.00 there- Uptown was a competitor for value now). Cajun prawn is done spicy-shrimp-salad in the seaweed boat style (think salmon roe) and is really good too. Yam tempura was as good as last time. The spicy tuna is nice but I detect some bonita in the home-made spicy sauce, which I find fishy and distracting, but it’s still nice. The cop-out chicken teriyaki roll was a nice surprise- moist, crispy skin-on chunks of thicken thigh meat, I could have eaten a whole plate of them, and I usually find these scaredy-cat rolls to be completely forgettable. This one is delicious.

My partner ate the gyu and liked it.

Now, this feast came to $49 with tax and teas. It is GREAT value, and GREAT, attentive, fast service in a really pleasant space.

So there. Give this place a try. If you don’t like it, you won’t be out more than a few bucks.

The Marginal Man

I wrote my BA thesis at Reed on Robert Ezra Park, one of the founders of the Chicago School of Sociology and not, really, all that interesting of a guy. But one of the most relevant and life-changing things I read (or skimmed, but still) as an undergrad was when I came across The Marginal Man: A Study in Personality and Culture by Everett Stonequist, one of Park’s students. A “Marginal Man” is somebody caught between cultures, and the focus of the work was persons who were racial or ethnic minorities (including new immigrants, one of Park’s and the Chicago School’s foci) and the struggles they faced when they attempted to enter the “dominant” culture.

This idea of “marginality” (which is different from the more common sense as synonymous with “powerless” as is usually implicit in contemporary sociology) really resonated with me. I was a first-generation college student, which by itself isn’t uncommon and certainly isn’t, by itself, a sign of Stonequist’s “marginality.” But I wasn’t only first generation; I was the youngest of seven kids in my family and only the second to graduate from high school. I moreover went to friggin’ REED, a liberal arts school 2000 miles from home and a school that was really a place that professors’ kids, and ONLY professors’ kids, belonged. I did not know or expect this when I was admitted; I was just looking forward to a good academic experience at a school that had a reputation for welcoming bookish outcasts, which was how I saw myself at 17.

I did fine at Reed. I graduated and got into a great grad school and am now doing what I dreamed of doing before I even knew what a “professor” was. But I never realised it when I jumped on that train to take me from Chicago to Portland in August of 1982, but I was saying good-bye to more than my mother that day: I was saying good-bye to my whole personal history, and all the people who were part of it. I wish I knew this, then.

What this has to do with today’s rant was really brought home yesterday. Every once in a while, I get on a jag where I become obsessed with contacting, or at least finding out about, people from my previous life: my life pre-Reed. And so I was sitting here with my high school yearbook propped in front of me (really!), googling name after name after name, entering names in the Facebook search bar, and nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I look at a listing in the yearbook and think, “this guy seemed to have his shit together; maybe he did something with his life.” Nope. High school alumni discussion boards? Nix. The hammondindiana.com message board is dead, and even when it was active, it was full of nothing but reminisces from the 1950s before Hammond turned into the terrifying dump that it is now. I even try to search for the haunts of my youth and find these horrifying images of Woodmar Mall, my high school stomping ground of choice. It’s been demolished after languishing in typical dead mall fashion for years.

Tom Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” For me, this is true, no question. My hometown qua hometown no longer exists. My mother moved to Griffith, a step up from Hammond, several years ago when it became obvious that the old neighbourhood, which had always been rough, was simply too dangerous for a 70-year-old (at the time) widow. There is no semblance of anything or anyone at “home” for me anymore, and this, combined with the fact that nobody ever, really, tries to contact me, is the bane of my existence. THE BANE of my EXISTENCE. If I had conventionally successful friends (pre-college) with what I think of, given my subsequent education, as a conventional internet presence, I could find them, no problem. But those I left behind are not like me. Well, there are some important exceptions, and you know who you are. But for the most part, I occupy a different world now, and it’s often painful to admit that. I have never once just “run into” somebody I knew from, say, high school, since I was perhaps 20 years old. Never. Not ever.

I have a great life, but damn, this Marginal Man stuff is hard to take sometimes.

If you’re reading this, and you knew me when? Drop me a line. Please.

Mountain View Roasterie, Didsbury AB

We stopped in Community Natural Foods yesterday and picked up some more peaches (it’s been another great summer for peaches, especially since I’ve learned not to refrigerate under-ripe ones- put them in a fruit bowl on the kitchen table and in a day or so, they’re perfect) and bulk granola, and I checked on their coffee selection just out of idle curiosity. Community has some decent local/BC roasters’ beans, including my previously-discussed Big Mountain Coffee, and a range of other small-ish roasters. I was amazed to find that, in their very limited shelf space, they’ve started to carry five beans from Mountain View Roasterie in Didsbury, about 40 minutes north of Calgary. MVR is a new roaster, only in business since late last winter, but they have great branding- here’s the logo portion of the bag I bought yesterday:

And a close-up of the best part:

Yep, a roast date! And it was four days prior to my purchase- sweet spot, in other words. I still have at least a half pound of the last pound of 49th Parallel Epic in my cabinet, but I had to try this new one. It’s (as you can see) a Costa Rican “La Amistad,” roasted medium/”full city.” All of the MVR beans at Community except for the Sumatran are medium; the Sumatran is med-dark, which is my preference usually. BUT I have always loved Costa Rican beans; Tarrazu was the first varietal that I really enjoyed, so I thought I’d give this a shot for espresso, and if that didn’t work, I’d try it in a press pot. Either way, it wasn’t a huge investment, with Community selling MVR at $13.95 a pound. That’s three bucks less than 49th and two less than Big Mountain- and Big Mountain doesn’t provide roast dates.

And I’m happy to say that the La Amistad makes a DELECTABLE espresso, a great balance of smooth-bright-deep and even warm spice and chocolate. Absolutely fantastic. I wrote the MVR owner, and he said that Bumpy’s and Beano will start carrying and serving his products. This is very, very interesting news, and I would love to taste his creations on a professional machine, but I’m not sure if they’re going to end up in the espresso machines at either shop.

Until then, you can find MVR’s Costa Rican La Amistad, Sumatran Gayoland, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Mexican and Peruvian at Community Natural Foods, both the 10th Ave and Chinook (61st Ave) locations.

Finally, a decent cappuccino vid (with meh latte art, but still!)

After several false starts- camera problems, battery problems, lighting problems, crappy pour problems- I completed and uploaded a video that is a pretty good representation of what I do every morning with my Leva.

Beans are 49th Parallel Epic Espresso.

Please enjoy.

Superbad (and Napoleon’s Secret Diary)

I just got back from a screening of Superbad at the Eau Claire Market cinemas, and it SOLD OUT. I have never seen more than a couple dozen people at any film there, with a couple of exceptions, but I’ve never seen crowds like this. And damn, what a fantastic movie! See it!

I also forgot to mention that I saw one more Fringe play: Napoleon’s Secret Diary, from Monster Theatre. It was a one-man show, and given how much I loved Jesus in Montana and the one-man shows of Daniel MacIvor and the last monologue of Laurie Anderson’s, I think I should always shoot for solo performances. Anyway, NSD was stunning, completely hilarious and every bit as engaging as Monster’s Jesus Christ: The Lost Years, from last year’s Fringe.