Today's post is only tangentially related to the Washington trip (you'll be relieved to hear if all the marble has been getting to you).
Instead it is concerned with something I had taken for granted in New Zealand but sadly cannot here - access to good fish. Now the fish in America is very good, as long as you are in the right place. Central Pennsylvania is not really the right place. When I first arrived here, aware that the trip from New York takes about four hours on a good day, I realised that fish this far inland might be a bit sketchy. And I was right, though perhaps not for the right reason.
You can get excellent fish here, you just have to know where to go. After a few forays that ended badly (taste wise...I haven't eaten any properly bad fish here) I've come to realise that it's only worth ordering fish in restaurants if someone I trust has recommended it. The other night Mrs Walles and I went out to a place where we had been advised the all-you-can-eat haddock and chips was good and it was excellent. So good that I had two platefuls. I've also had very good seafood at a Japanese hibachi place. But then if you were looking for somewhere that was pretty much guaranteed to have fresh fish, a Japanese restaurant would surely be a good bet.
Though fish here is generally lacklustre I don't think this is because of our distance from the coast right now. It seems more likely that in the time before fast transportation when the coast was even more remote people here just didn't have a lot of experience with cooking and eating fresh seafood. I think you can see this in the way that a lot of restaurants serve fish - baked and smothered in cheese sauce, the kind of dish that's designed to stifle any flavour of the fish itself. It's a conservative region and I can easily see this indifference to fish passing from one generation to the next even as access to good seafood improved.
I'm not sure if that's the explanation, but it's still a fact that it's hard to find good seafood around here, so I'm very grateful to the friend who gave us the tip the other night. I don't have to wait until we visit a coastal area to get my seafood fix anymore (as I did in Washington). The new place has me hook, line and sinker.
Showing posts with label philosophising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophising. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Cute critters
I spent a big chunk of this morning scrubbing our deck and otherwise cleaning up after the squirrels, chipmunks and various birds that like the casual al fresco dining experience we provide. It wasn't too bad but it's a shame they won't use the facilities.
Anyway, I got to thinking about the cuteness of my woodland friends (I say friends, but I've no doubt they'd turn on me in a moment if the nut supply dried up...) and I think I've worked out a way to measure their cuteness based on how much food you are willing to let them steal.
Take the chipmunks, for example. One of these, which we started calling Hoover, was particularly fond of nicking seed from the bird feeder. I even mixed in some cayenne pepper with the seed, which is supposed to deter mammals while going unnoticed by the birds. This kept another chipmunk away, but not Hoover who apparently had a taste for the hot stuff. I say "had" because I now think it was he, and not the little chipmunk, that was eaten by a cat a few weeks ago. No chipmunks have been stealing seed since then.
Anyway, my point is that Hoover made of with bags and bags of sunflower seeds - chipmunks hoard tremendous amounts of food in their underground larders, something like half a bushel which is about twenty litres - and I really didn't mind. Yes, he was being a rascal, but he was just do darned cute I couldn't really get angry at him (and I certainly didn't want him disappeared by a cat). So judging by how much food I was willing to tolerate him stealing, Hoover's cuteness would have had the needle tapping at the end of the scale.
At the other end of the scale we have, for example, the ants that were plaguing us for a while. They didn't actually make off with any food as far as I know, but that was still too much for us to tolerate. Not cute at all.
And in between we find everything else. The blue jays have been getting on our nerves because they've started hovering all the time to eat the peanuts we put out for the squirrels. They may look good but they're not as cute as my squirelly pals. And the bunnies are lovely to have out on the lawn - but woe betide any rabbit that eats any of my plants.
It's not a very scientific measure but it works in most cases. I'm not sure if it still works when one cute critter eats another one - I'm not feeling any love for that chipmunk-chewing cat right now, but that's because a tiny fuzzy life has been snuffed out, not because I'm thinking of all that seed going to waste (no, really). So it still needs some work. I guess I'll just have to study these cute little animals some more.
Anyway, I got to thinking about the cuteness of my woodland friends (I say friends, but I've no doubt they'd turn on me in a moment if the nut supply dried up...) and I think I've worked out a way to measure their cuteness based on how much food you are willing to let them steal.
Take the chipmunks, for example. One of these, which we started calling Hoover, was particularly fond of nicking seed from the bird feeder. I even mixed in some cayenne pepper with the seed, which is supposed to deter mammals while going unnoticed by the birds. This kept another chipmunk away, but not Hoover who apparently had a taste for the hot stuff. I say "had" because I now think it was he, and not the little chipmunk, that was eaten by a cat a few weeks ago. No chipmunks have been stealing seed since then.
Anyway, my point is that Hoover made of with bags and bags of sunflower seeds - chipmunks hoard tremendous amounts of food in their underground larders, something like half a bushel which is about twenty litres - and I really didn't mind. Yes, he was being a rascal, but he was just do darned cute I couldn't really get angry at him (and I certainly didn't want him disappeared by a cat). So judging by how much food I was willing to tolerate him stealing, Hoover's cuteness would have had the needle tapping at the end of the scale.
At the other end of the scale we have, for example, the ants that were plaguing us for a while. They didn't actually make off with any food as far as I know, but that was still too much for us to tolerate. Not cute at all.
And in between we find everything else. The blue jays have been getting on our nerves because they've started hovering all the time to eat the peanuts we put out for the squirrels. They may look good but they're not as cute as my squirelly pals. And the bunnies are lovely to have out on the lawn - but woe betide any rabbit that eats any of my plants.
It's not a very scientific measure but it works in most cases. I'm not sure if it still works when one cute critter eats another one - I'm not feeling any love for that chipmunk-chewing cat right now, but that's because a tiny fuzzy life has been snuffed out, not because I'm thinking of all that seed going to waste (no, really). So it still needs some work. I guess I'll just have to study these cute little animals some more.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
A disclaimer
In writing this blog I'm bound to attribute a lot of things to Americans that don't really apply to all Americans - indeed I've probably done it already. I don't mean stereotypes, which I hope to avoid, but the danger of generalising from the people I have encountered to those I haven't. Because they aren't all the same. Far from it.
Take, for example, the classic stereotype that American service is excellent, but insincere. I believe there are places - though I haven't personally visited them - like Los Angeles and Southern California generally that this is true. Visitors to those places have the stereotype reinforced each time they go.
I can personally attest, though, that neither part of the stereotype applies in heartland Pennsylvania. Here the service can be good or bad, but either way it is generally very sincere. They're good, salt of the earth types, and I just don't think they have any time for putting on a show. Even in New York City, where service generally depends on how much you're willing to fork over, I have many times experienced spontaneous and sincere offers of help - the hotel doorman who hails you a cab, or the theatre usher who offers to take your photo.
The point is that attitudes vary widely in the US and it is a point I didn't really appreciate before I came here. Of course I didn't think Americans were all cookie cutter duplicates. But I didn't appreciate that their differences from one another might outweigh their similarities. I'm still not sure exactly how diverse they are, but it is a lot more than I expected.
The differences cut across each other. There are geographical differences, ethnic and racial differences, language differences, religious differences, educational differences and who knows what other kinds of social differences. There are individual idiosyncrasies, too, but if you look carefully you can identify characteristics that are common among, say, New Yorkers, or rural Pennsylvanians or urban Jews. Take the whole nation, though, and it is a lot harder to pin down those commonalities.
I'm not sure why this is. Individualism is a virtue here, but is that a cause or an effect? It is a documented fact that before independence the thirteen colonies that made up the fledgling United States (pop quiz, can you name them?) had more to do with the mother country than with each other, so even in the beginning this country was diverse. More recent immigration from far-flung parts of the world was no doubt another contributor. And when the land itself varies so much, from snow-capped mountains to vast plains to deserts to forests to swamps, you would expect the people to vary to match. Enough of my half-baked theories, though.
The upshot of all this is that it is hard to generalise from the Americans I meet to Americans in general, and I ask you, gentle reader, to keep that in mind. When you see me boldly state that Americans do this or think that, always attach a footnote in your head reading "at least the Americans I have encountered". And if, by chance, you happen to be one of those Americans I haven't encountered, feel free to correct me where I stray from the truth.
Don't save the sceptical treatment just for me, though. Do it whenever you hear a weary traveller report on their experiences. I remember in New Zealand often listening on the radio to talking heads just returned from LA or, rarely, New York or further afield, reporting on the attitudes or behaviour of the American people. Now I know just how suspect those reports were.
Mind you, that hasn't stopped me from doing pretty much the same thing in this blog. Just consider yourself warned.
Take, for example, the classic stereotype that American service is excellent, but insincere. I believe there are places - though I haven't personally visited them - like Los Angeles and Southern California generally that this is true. Visitors to those places have the stereotype reinforced each time they go.
I can personally attest, though, that neither part of the stereotype applies in heartland Pennsylvania. Here the service can be good or bad, but either way it is generally very sincere. They're good, salt of the earth types, and I just don't think they have any time for putting on a show. Even in New York City, where service generally depends on how much you're willing to fork over, I have many times experienced spontaneous and sincere offers of help - the hotel doorman who hails you a cab, or the theatre usher who offers to take your photo.
The point is that attitudes vary widely in the US and it is a point I didn't really appreciate before I came here. Of course I didn't think Americans were all cookie cutter duplicates. But I didn't appreciate that their differences from one another might outweigh their similarities. I'm still not sure exactly how diverse they are, but it is a lot more than I expected.
The differences cut across each other. There are geographical differences, ethnic and racial differences, language differences, religious differences, educational differences and who knows what other kinds of social differences. There are individual idiosyncrasies, too, but if you look carefully you can identify characteristics that are common among, say, New Yorkers, or rural Pennsylvanians or urban Jews. Take the whole nation, though, and it is a lot harder to pin down those commonalities.
I'm not sure why this is. Individualism is a virtue here, but is that a cause or an effect? It is a documented fact that before independence the thirteen colonies that made up the fledgling United States (pop quiz, can you name them?) had more to do with the mother country than with each other, so even in the beginning this country was diverse. More recent immigration from far-flung parts of the world was no doubt another contributor. And when the land itself varies so much, from snow-capped mountains to vast plains to deserts to forests to swamps, you would expect the people to vary to match. Enough of my half-baked theories, though.
The upshot of all this is that it is hard to generalise from the Americans I meet to Americans in general, and I ask you, gentle reader, to keep that in mind. When you see me boldly state that Americans do this or think that, always attach a footnote in your head reading "at least the Americans I have encountered". And if, by chance, you happen to be one of those Americans I haven't encountered, feel free to correct me where I stray from the truth.
Don't save the sceptical treatment just for me, though. Do it whenever you hear a weary traveller report on their experiences. I remember in New Zealand often listening on the radio to talking heads just returned from LA or, rarely, New York or further afield, reporting on the attitudes or behaviour of the American people. Now I know just how suspect those reports were.
Mind you, that hasn't stopped me from doing pretty much the same thing in this blog. Just consider yourself warned.
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