Ask Tom

The Washington Post food critic is Tom Sietesma. He's a fascinating guy. I want to figure out how to be his friend - or at least his dining companion!

Every week in the Post Magazine, after the weekly restaurant critique, Tom fields a question from a reader. Well, I just sent one in!

Good evening,

I have a question I'd like to ask Tom Sietsema! As an occasional solo diner, I try to be cognizant of the impact that my lower tab has on waitstaff. I don't linger and I tip well. I sit at the bar when I can to keep tables open for larger, more lucrative parties. However, now that the weather is getting nicer and outdoor seating areas are open, I'd like to know Tom's take on solo diners sitting at outdoor tables. Often, outdoor seating is at a premium and I feel guiltier about taking a two- or three-top table outside than I would inside. Does it go against dining etiquette for a solo diner to sit outside? Do waitstaff look down on this practice?

What do my faithful readers think? Much has been writting about the etiquette of solo dining but nowhere have I seen the particular aspect of outdoor dining addressed.

I will be sure to post back if my question gets answered!

Hockey Helplessness

I don't have cable. I love not having cable. I get all the local channels plus a couple of news channels and the CW free over the air through my digital converter box and antenna. I even get Al Jazeera (which is excellent for international news, by the way). I can watch the news, many sit-coms, some sporting events, and am blessedly saved from the irresistable quick-sand that is the Real Housewives series (except when I catch reruns on hulu.com)

This frees up much of my time to read, crossword, exercise, cook, listen to music, play my banjo, and generally lead a more peaceful and productive life that I would if I were glued to the cable for five (plus!) hours per day.

The only time that my cable-free life becomes a burden is during hockey playoff season! Now, I can catch certain games on NBC or watch the good ones at my SO's place. But, most often, I'm relegated to listening to them live on streaming radio.

There's really nothing wrong with this. I've been watching hockey for a long time (over 20 years) and at this point I need to see a game OR hear it, but not both. Watching and listening to games at the same time is considered a luxury at this point!

The downfall of listening to games is the feeling of helplessness that comes with not being able to see things like the teams' energy, the coaches' expressions, all those intangibles that go toward how optimistic I feel about the game.

For example, last night the Wings shot a puck into the Coyotes' net but apparently the entire thing didn't go over the line. NHL rules state that the entire puck must cross the goal line in order for the goal to be counted. Well, it was a close call so the referees had to review the play to make their determination.

I'm sitting here in my living room feeling totally out of control. At least if I could see the game on my TV I could maybe read lips or watch their body language. But having to rely solely on the announcers, as they babble away about various rules and regulations was absolutely driving me nuts!!

These are the things I ponder here in the evenings as I contemplate my life choices and their impact. As seeing as how hockey playoffs are the most important event in my life right now, I figured it was worth a post.

PS, they determined that the first goal was no good. Later in the second period we scored again and again the refs decided to review the shot. They said it was a good one and we ended up winning the game, but it was definitely a stroke-worthy couple of moments.

Back on my Feet

A certain someone is out of town this week and I am taking the opportunity to run every day, go to bed early, eat salads for dinner, and abstain from alcohol. It's amazing how much I can eat and drink when I'm out at a neighborhood bar with excellent company! But no. I've gotta rein it in and get my life back under control after a more-than-slightly indulgent weekend in Atlanta.

"Charge it to the room" are words that are all too easy to say as you see no reason why not to have that third or fourth drink. No credit card to be swiped, nowhere to go except up the elevator... and yikes. Food and drink go down way too easy!

Yep, I'm back on track. How many times have I said that before?

Strangest Phenomenon

I'm heading out of town for the weekend and I thought I would leave you all with a strange, somewhat creepy, and probably paranoid post. Yes, I have nothing better to do than to notice and wonder about these weird things.

I've noticed lately that some Walk/Don't Walk signals that were previously lined up with crosswalks, and thus in full view and facing crossing pedestrians, are now tilted. They don't face the crosswalks anymore and make it impossible to see whether a pedestrian has the walk signal. As some of these intersections have one-way left-turn signals, crossing safely isn't always as obvious as simply waiting for the opposite light to change.

I photographed three of these signals. These are intersections that I walk through on a regular basis and only recently have they not been lined up with the crosswalks. I snapped some photos with my cell phone but it's difficult to tell what I'm talking about. Just look at the actual crosswalks and you'll see that the Walk/Don't Walk signals don't line up with them. They're pointed sort of at the oncoming traffic instead of at the pedestrians across the street (i.e. the perspective of me taking the picture).

20th St & N St (downtown):


16th St & New Hampshire Ave (U St):


1st St & East Capitol St (Capitol Hill):


I know this is a weird thing to notice. But I swear the tilt is recent. Any ideas WHY or HOW these signals have become skewed so they don't line up with the crosswalks??

For the Love of Hockey

My favorite time of year is coming up - NHL playoffs! It hasn't been the best year for my Red Wings. We were sidelined by massive amounts of injuries for the entire first 2/3 of the season and were placed in the middle of pack, standings-wise. But recently we've had our full lines again and shown our true colors, recently winning seven straight games and ten out of thirteen, rocketing from tenth place to fifth, well within the playoff berth.

This average standing actually poises us for playoffs quite nicely. We're matched with the Vancouver Canucks for the first round, another middle-ranked team. But, since we're playing well above our standing, we should have no problem eliminating the Canadians in Round One.

The only annoying thing is our strange placement in the Western Conference. Detroit is so far east yet we're in the Western Conference, so the first round of playoffs tends to be against Vancouver, San Jose, Anaheim, Phoenix... all those teams on the east coast. We basically have to travel all over God's creation and deal with jet-lag issues that other teams don't... but alas, we're quite accustomed to it, and there are no plans to redraw the conference boundaries. So we deal with it.

Right now I'm watching the Capitals vs. Bruins on network TV. I don't care much for the Capitals but I adore two Bruins - Zdeno Charra and Miroslav Satan. I can't get enough of watching them play together, and I'll be especially ecstatic if they beat the DC team.

It's a nice afternoon of hockey watching and Sudoku before I head off for the evening. Windows thrown open, cats lounging around, feeling relaxed and ready for the week. Doesn't get much better than this.

Spring blues?

We've all heard of (and experienced) the winter blues but is it possible to have a touch of the spring blues? The weather is gorgeous, the blossoms are blooming, and yet I have no motivation to run and would love nothing more than to take a nice long nap (except that I have mysteriously lost the ability to nap in the past 6-months).

Maybe I am burned out at work? I'm not particularly bored at the office, nor am I (more) short-tempered (than usual), but I haven't had a break in a while. Well, that's not true, I had two days off in a row in February during the snow storm.

Oh well, I guess there doesn't always have to be a reason to feel down. Just having a low-energy couple of weeks, I guess.

Whine and complain

I do not feel good. I have a pounding headache and am exhausted. I feel chubby and thick. My feet hurt.

And I don't have any cheese to go with my whine.

Road Trip Creepiness

Yesterday we took a nice drive down to the mouth of the Potomac. The weather was hazy and warm and we had a few memorable excursions along the way. The little St. Clement's Island museum was deserted but charming, and we found an interesting graveyard in historic St. Mary's City.

After a few stops and walks around, we found ourselves hungry. Both of us having a fondness for 'local color' - whatever that may entail - we pulled into a little inn and restaurant, looking for a sandwich or slice of pizza. What we walked into resembled the twilight zone.

Five round, dingy tables sat in what looked like someone's living room. An old fat woman with flabby arms sat at one table, stringy hair hanging over her shoulder. She was complaining about not being able to smoke. A family sat at another table, finishing some pizza. A third table was covered with pizzas, 2-liter sodas, and cupcakes.

In a darkened room resembling a private living room, off the main dining area, two diners sat still, not talking, not eating, no lights on. Were they alive? Asleep? The place was silent - no music playing, no one speaking.

The fourth table housed a manger scene, still going strong into the first week in April, and at the fifth table sat a partially blind man in an electric wheelchair.

The hostess told the wheelchair-bound man that she would need his table for the 'eat-in guests' and he said he was on his way. As he attempted to wheel past us he said, to my partner, "Excuse me sir, or ma'am, or whatever you are..." Now, he is very much a man and resembles one as such, though I suppose for a blind person it would be difficult to tell. He seemed to be able to get himself by the tables and out the door, though.

As we ordered (water and iced tea, onion rings, and an Italian sub to split), the door opened and eight young children poured into the room, aparently in the middle of a birthday party.

On a dare, I went to the bathroom - mostly to explore the back room with the catatonic women. Back there were three sofas arranged in a partial square, bounded off by shelves and boxes. Several people were lounging on the couches doing nothing - not talking, no TV, not reading. Just sitting there. Staring straight ahead. Doing nothing.

Where the heck were we?? What had we wandered into? And would we get out alive??

Thankfully, our food arrived and was actually pretty good. We had to sit through an awful rendition of "Happy Birthday" (to Bruce) and listen to the fat woman complain more. We ate our food, wide-eyed and confused, and got the hell out of there as quickly as we could!

I was craving a coke and we needed gas, so he pulled into a no-name gas station that happened to share space with a laundromat. We looked at each other and understood. As my hand gripped his knee he pulled straight through the row of fuel pumps, exited the parking lot, and we kept going until we found a large Exxon station.

Three Gratuitous Photos

My kitties, gazing at the wonderful view:



A shot of the stone lantern with cherry blossoms blooming:



A view of the Tidal Basin during the Cherry Blossom Festival:

March Savings Round-Up

CVS:

Subtotal: $2.11
Coupons: $0
Total: $2.11 (lip gloss)

Harris Teeter:

Subtotal: $194.70
Coupons: $95.57
Total: $99.13

This does not include about $30 spent on miscellaneous trips to the corner store for last minute/small items when I needed them and didn't feel like going to the store. It also includes $43.33 - $16 = $27.33 in pet supplies that should last me a while.

My most faithful commenter mentioned the hard-core couponers who have zero balances at the store. I get a lot of stuff for free but I rarely have a zero balance because I do buy produce, meat, and other things I just want.

A lot of people who routinely have zero balances take advantage of the huge deal-making promotions - but those are usually from Pillsbury or Wishbone or other junky type foods that I don't eat.

Joys of Homeownership

Wow. This weekend was filled with home improvement projects. Thankfully, all of them got done and I had some indespensible help. It's such a relief to have all these things crossed off my list!

1. Purchase and install proper bolt-type hook mounting thingy for hanging my towelrack on the bathroom door.
2. Purchase and install new floodlight halogen bulbs in my kitchen track lighting.
3. Re-install screen that came off when I was trying to put birdseed on the sill for the birds. One of the handles came off and we had to get all MacGyver on it's ass.
4. Have painter come and scrape damaged paint, reapply plaster, and touch up walls damaged from the ice dam that formed on the roof above my unit during Snowmageddon.
5. Replace burned out garbage disposal.

Yikes! That was a lot of stuff to do. Thankfully, since I own a condo, we have a management company that holds a master insurance policy on the building. So they arranged for and will pay the painter. While he was here, he offered to replace my disposal for what I considered a fair fee (cost of disposal plus $100 installation fee). He went right over to Home Depot and came back and did it the same day!

The hooks, screen, and lightbulbs were done courtesy of my very own personal general contractor/chef/walker-to-worker/other duties as necessary man. Many thanks :)

Here are some phots of the water damage to my walls:




Here are the walls scraped and re-plastered:





And the finished product, good as new:

Pretty Good Shopping Trip

Harris Teeter March 27, 2010

1 Quaker Oats
6 Uncle Ben's wild rice
1 Raisins
1 Mitchum deodorant
3 pkgs chicken breast (three in each package)
1 Ben & Jerry's Phish Food
12 Yoplait yogurts

Subtotal: $65.01
Coupons: $39.52
TOTAL: $25.49

I am doing pretty well... spending about $25/week at Harris Teeter for groceries, which is down from about $65/week that I was spending last year before paying attention to coupons and sales.

I haven't had, nor will I need to go, to CVS for a very long while. And I've accumulated enough of a stockpile of certain items (bought for free or for pennies) that I am about to take two huge bags of dry goods and personal care items to the Capitol Area Food Bank.

Small goals

In my ever-present quest for self-improvement, I have decided to set two small goals for the rest of the year.

1. To read the entire feature article in National Geographic each month.
2. To read the entire feature article in the Washington Post magazine every month.

Starting tonight with the Nat Geo 'water' issue... a very serious issue. I'm excited :)

Observations

The National Mall is getting crowded! Here are a few observations from my run this afternoon:

1. A lot of people are fat
2. A lot of people smoke
3. I love helping people with directions :)
4. I'm surprised more tourists aren't hit by cars
5. Republicans, especially those under 25, are instantly recognizable
6. I will never understand why people are so fascinated with squirrels

Lately I'm obsessed with this song...

Keeping my mouth shut!

The weather is getting warmer and everyone seems to be thinking about tank tops, swimwear, and getting rid of their winter weight. I'm really happy to hear so many people at work wanting to get healthy and active but it's very frustrating to hear the things they say. There's a lot of mis-information going around and a lot of frustration with lack of results. But when you hear the things they say it's easy to see why the things they're doing aren't working.

Fifteen minutes on the elliptical and fifteen minutes of walking on the treadmill three times a week ain't gonna do it if you eat Popeye's for lunch every day. I'm sorry.

I stay out of conversations unless someone invites me in. It's quite common knowledge that I run and practice yoga, that I cook my own meals and eat well (and cheat occasionally!). I don't want to get preachy or anything... at the same time I can so easily pinpoint where people are sabotaging themselves and it's tempting to want to offer help.

Oh well. This is why I have a iPod I guess.

Staying Consistent

For a moderately athetic person such as myself who runs for enjoyment, weight control, and stress relief, consistency is almost more important than intensity when looking at the long haul.

That's why I forced myself out there today. It was raining and gross. Humid. Wormy. I felt flabby, which for some reason usually means I DON'T want to run (running when I feel thin is great, but I feel thin when I run consistently... so....).

Somewhere deep down I found my mojo and went out for a slow and gentle 30-minute jog in the neighborhood and my goodness do I feel good.

In my many years of experience I've found that it's very, very important to resist skipping runs simply when you 'don't feel like it.' Those are the days when you need to just lace up your shoes and go. Over time, those 'don't feel like it days' really add up, and doing something is always better than doing nothing so that when you look back over the past month or two you find that you've run more days than not.

And that's when you find that running is accomplishing what you want it to accomplish. When you find that you are maintaining your weight, when your clothes fit, when you feel overall pretty darn good.

Otherwise, what's the point? Running should be an activity that works for you, that adds to the quality of your life. When it becomes too off-and-on, well, I find that the effort isn't worth it. There's no payoff!

Reminding myself of all this, and that there's never any pressure to set any records out there, I am, once again, glad I didn't skip it. I'm always glad when I don't skip it.

Adventures in Home Improvement - Part II

My consultation with Dan Benjamin of Sundance Construction went really well. I get the feeling that this guy really understands what I'm going for and he seemed to know his trade. He's done a ton of work in several houses on my block and said he would call one of his former clients for whom he did a similar built-in bookcase and ask if we could come over and look at it together.

He looked over my design drawings, took lots of photos, and will have a quote for me by Tuesday.

On the business side of things he comes with great references, lots of repeat customers, is registered with the DC Better Business Bureau, was about ten minutes late but called me right at our appointment time to let me know that he was on his way. He was not rushed at all and stayed to talk with me for about an hour. He made friends with my cats.

So... now I wait for the quote. If I like the quote and decide to hire him he said he will do a mock-up for me to look at and go from there!

Stay tuned!

Geography of the Genders

Seeing as how this is a milestone year for me, I really appreciated the following descriptions of how a woman changes as she ages.

GEOGRAPHY OF A WOMAN

- Between 18 and 22, a woman is like Africa - half discovered, half wild, fertile and naturally beautiful!

- Between 23 and 30, a woman is like Europe - Well-developed and open to trade, especially for something of real value.

- Between 31 and 35, a woman is like Spain - very hot, relaxed, and convinced of her own beauty.

- Between 36 and 40, a woman is like Greece - gently aging, but still a warm and desirable place to visit.

- Between 41 and 50, a woman is like Great Britain , with a glorious and all-conquering past..

- Between 51 and 60, a woman is like Israel - has been through war, doesn't make the same mistakes twice, and takes care of business.

- Between 61 and 70, a woman is like Canada - Cool, self-preserving, but open to meeting new people.

- After 70, she becomes Tibet - wildly beautiful, with a mysterious past and the wisdom of the ages.... An adventurous spirit and a thirst for spiritual knowledge.



THE GEOGRAPHY OF A MAN

Between 1 and 80, a man is like Iran...

--- ruled by nuts.

THE END

Adventures in Home Improvement - Part I

It's my first true act as a homeowner! I'm changing the inside of my home. I can do it! It's mine!

I am looking to install some custom bookshelves to frame my closet and bathroom doors, which are on the same wall. The shelves would start on the left side of the wall and go up and over the bathroom door, down the middle wall to the floor, and up and over the closet door. There would be one row of shelf above the door so it's as though you are walking through the shelves when you walk through the door.

I have a to-scale design drawing and some magazine photos that show some of the finer details I'd like.

Tomorrow at 3pm I have a consultation with the owner of a well-recommended carpentry/home renovation company. He knows my building - I told him the location and he wrote back "Is that the old nunnery?" so that's encouraging He comes well-recommended on the community list-serves, has a lot of repeat business, etc.

I would also like him to replace one missing cabinet door in the kitchen. It's the one that goes to the garbage disposal so it's kind of ugly not to have a door on that cabinet. I have the handle but I need a door.

Anyway, the shelves would look like this except I have two doors and those aren't my colors. I wish that were my piano!!



This is what the current wall looks like.



There is another two feet of ceiling above the heat vent.

I will be keeping all my faithful readers updated on this process! It's a learning experience for me... so stay tuned!