Preliminary reports are that there was under 9% turnout for the election today. That's pretty weak. Altho (according to Sarah) not as bad as the lowest on record which was down around 5%. Still not sure what was actually decided in this. I think only the top two vote-getters for mayor go on to the general election. But since the incumbent mayor got over 80% in the primary, I don't think there's much chance of anything major changing by next month. Like I said, for city council, it was "choose three" out of seven. The top three were the two incumbents and the local publisher guy. This probably tells us something about the values of incumbency and name-recognition in a low turnout election.
Watching the Brazil v. Mexico friendly right now. El Tri holding an early 1-0 lead. Brazil, of course, looking dangerous. Every once in a while, they'll go to replay on some stunning bit of play by Brazil. Which always just seems to be tossed off casually in the run of play. So far it hasn't produced anything but shots skied over the net (oh, wait, there's one straight at the keeper). Anyway, viva Mexico!
Semi-related to my post last week about patenting a sammich and totally fascinating story about the now-iconic Keep Calm and Carry On poster. The stuff about the jerk trying to trademark it is pretty interesting but what I really loved is the history stuff, Shorter version: the poster, which seems so emblematic of the British homefront in WWII was actually never released to the public.

Well, it's amazing how much not having half one's house virtually unusable will improve one's mood. Good progress on the repairs front. Plus a nice lunch and some completed yardwork and some afternoon shopping. And an excellent dinner at Geer Street Garden. This is the second time we've been on a Sunday night and it's a much more manageable crowd. Certainly than on the several weeknights we've tried to go only to find 30+ minute waits (which we didn't wait for). The grilled pimento cheese is highly recommended. Also worth your time (altho it wouldn't surprise me if it was seasonal) is the watermelon cocktail which is sorta like a watermelon agua fresca crossed w/ a mojito (lime & mint) but w/ vodka (not rum). Tasty!
Oh and the Rays quest for the playoffs has gotten way less quixotic of late. Right now they're sitting one half game behind the Sawx for the wildcard. If the (hated) Yankees can win the second game of this double-header they're playing w/ Boston then Tampa Bay will be tied for the wildcard. With three games to play. And all of the Rays remaining games are against the Yankees. So it'd be great to see that game (heading into the top of the 13th as I write this) go about, oh, twenty innings.

Following up on my rambling thoughts on America's Next Great Restaurant (which is a pretty bad name, I think -- I mean, they're not really searching for "greatness" except within a specific set of requirements they've set but I guess "America's Next Great Fast-Casual Chain Restaurant Concept" is a bit clunky). Someone at AV Club has started re-capping the show and he's both on-point and pretty damn funny but he's also captured exactly what I was thinking about a couple of the contestants, especially the post-ironic hipsters with the bbq or grilling or whatever concept. Phrase that pays: "they haven't realized that you can't cook food by aiming ironic detachment at it."
In non-TV-based food news, we went downtown tonight to check out the recently opened Bull City Burger and Brewery, hoping that the opening week crowds wouldn't be so bad on a Tuesday night. Which they might not have been but they were bad enough that we decided to leave that for another day and walked around the corner to Dos Perros. Had an excellent meal (shared sweet potato empanadas to start; Sarah had the pibil and I had a house-made chorizo dish. Yum! Also they had Dogfish Aprihop on draught). Also, how cool is it that there are now so many excellent places to eat in downtown Durham that if one is crowded or closed, you can just walk a little bit and find another.

I'm sure there was something I wanted to write about but I'm kinda feeling dragged down by the overwhelming amount of angry stupidity that seems to be running around loose in the world lately.

But, hey, cats with thumbs. Be very afraid.

Made recent visits to Old Havana and Dame's. Both times excellent. Service was a bit distracted, shall we say, at Dame's but the food was outstanding. I had the orange chabo (or whatever the heck it's called) and it's definitely in the running for my fave thing I've had there. The orange shmear for the waffle and the honey-mustard on the chicken work great together. Sarah had the one w/ blueberry shmear and plum sauce (that's my other fave). Had lunch at Old Havana last Saturday and it was even better. No noisy toddlers this time. Yay! Glad to see they were still doing a brisk business. I had the Santiago, which is just the roasted pork. zOMG! Some of the best non-NC barbecue chopped pork ever. Sarah had the Tampa sandwich, with salami added to the basic Cuban sammich mix. And we split a side of the maduros. So good! I might not know anything about Cuban sandwiches but I know something about good sandwiches and those are some damn tasty sammiches. (Rodny sez "check it out!)

So let's talk sandwiches. Two very good, if very different sammich places have opened recently in the area: Old Havana Sandwich Shop (in Durham) and Streets Deli (in Chapel Hill). First, I guess, I should caveat these write-ups by noting that I've only been to each place once. So I can't speak to consistency or much of the menu. If you went and had a crappy experience, well, that sucks. But I did not and look forward to going back to both.
Old Havana is in downtown Durham, on Main St. just east of Roxboro St. They specialize, in case you couldn't guess, in Cuban sandwiches. I had the classic (they call it the Havana) w/ roast pork, ham, cheese, pickle, mustard and mojo sauce. Outstanding! Okay, I'm no expert in authentic Cuban sandwiches. But (not to get all cliched here) I know what I like. And that's a hell of a sammich. I added some extra mojo sauce to the second half, and that made it even better. Worth mentioning: they're using bread from Guglhupf. Also, if you're into such things, they're sourcing the meat for their roast pork locally. I also had a cafe con leche cubano, which was damn good. Will have to stop in some morning and see how their cortadito compares to Scratch's cortado (which may be my absolute favorite coffee drink anywhere). The space is nice and the people are super nice. My only quibble was that when I was there (mid-day on a Saturday), there were several parents who apparently felt so at home at OHSS that they felt free to let their toddlers run amok in the space. Altho, to be fair, while they were playing noisily, they weren't screaming or crying or acting out in any anti-social ways. And there were, I think, 5 families there and 3 of them had very well-behaved children. And, of course, if I'd thought it was that bad, I could've left (they were already there when I arrived) or gotten my food to go.
Streets Deli is on 54, in Chapel Hill. Next to the swanky new Aloft hotel, across from Jujube, not far from the intersection w/ 15-501. They've only been open about a month, I think. We'd tried to go there a few weeks ago but it was so crowded they weren't seating anyone (there was at least one party ahead of us, that we could see) and warning people that it'd be at least 20 min. after ordering to get food. Which struck me as ridiculously optimistic. If the restaurant either has no empty tables or the kitchen is so slammed that you've had to stop seating people, I think it's probably gonna take more than 20 min. for your food to show up. But anyway, we had to run some errands in CH this morning so we decided to give Streets another try. There were plenty of tables today. It felt like we got in ahead of the lunch rush, even though I think we were only about 30 min. earlier than when we'd tried to go last time. Sarah had a Russian reuben (made w/ pastrami instead of corned beef) and I had a chopped liver sandwich w/ bacon & onion. Damn good! Okay, so I have  bit more experience w/ NY deli sammiches. Streets does not really match up w/ the best I ever had in Manhattan (that'd be the Second Avenue Deli, back when it was actually on Second Ave. even). But it's by far the best I've tried in this area. It compares well with some of the better deli sammiches I've had in Vegas. And I've certainly had way worse in NYC. Definitely plan on return visits there as well. I notice on the menu that they make their own corned beef hash, so that may have to be investigated. I should mention the bread, which was okay. It passed the basic test of standing up to the sandwich pretty well. Much better, no surprise, dealing with the chopped liver than the reuben. A lot of places don't even get that far. We both had the marble rye. Decent flavor, not great, maybe a bit on the stale side. Next time I'll try the standard seeded rye and see what that's like. Oh, and the iced tea was good. Just standard issue Luziane but (again) a lot of places can't get that right either.

Another local dining update. Take it from me, what you want to be doing is getting yourself (at the next opportunity) downtown to eat at Dame's Chicken and Waffles. We've been three times now and it's been wonderful every time. They can get busy, esp. around lunch/brunch on weekends but the service has been good even when they're slammed. I slightly prefer the sweet potato to the classic waffles but it's a close call. My fave has been the blueberry shmear and panko-coated chicken. Best side, so far, was the collards. Altho they've only had them on one of our visits. I had a taste of the mac & cheese side and it was excellent. Altho that does make for a somewhat heavier meal. Good sweet tea, too. We've been for lunch, brunch (right when they opened on Sunday) and dinner and were pleased to see they were doing good business all three times of day. I was gonna say something stupid about how you can't really screw up with fried chicken and waffles. But that's ridiculous. It's all too easy (and all too common -- just think about how much bad pizza there is in the world) to screw up something basic. What's great about Dame's is that they get it right.

Well, that was unexpected. We actually got about an inch of snow this afternoon. I cannot remember there ever being measurable snow in Durham in December. Hell, it's rare enough to get observable snowfall in December. So much for global warming. And Al Gore is fat. Also.
But a mere inch of snow was not enough to keep us from Day 3 of the Too Much Culture and Fun Extravaganza. Well, Day 3 for me. Day 2 for Sarah. And, yes, I realize that I've skipped over my Day 2. Will try to get to that tomorrow. But tonite we went to see Hot Club of Cowtown. At Casbah, one of Durham's newer clubs. Nice space. Good sound. Beer selection was impressive. I look forward to seeing more shows there. And Hot Club were great. We hadn't seen them in over nine years. In fact, they broke up and got back together in the intervening years. So glad they did and are as awesome as before. Glad they played some stuff from the early CDs as well as a couple of tracks from their upcoming Bob Wills disc. Good times, indeed.

Been working way too much the last few days. Surprisingly, not because of the looming holidays but for reasons that are wholly project driven. So there is light at end of o' the tunnel and it's probably not an oncoming train. The end of the tunnel is a bit farther off than it would be if it was just holiday madness (since TG is only a week out... eek!).
Oh it's not all family medical emergencies and overtime. We had brunch with friends on Sunday. Last night I went down to Pinhook for trivia (team: Thundercats) (hoh!). Same results as last time. We won a round and tied enough only to lose on the tiebreaker round. And tonight Sarah and I went to Fullsteam for another fun A/V Geeks show. This time it was "How to be a Woman" and included films on: self defense (face scratching, foot stomping, eye gouging and knees to the crotch were prominently featured, along w/ advice to elbow an attacker hard enough to break a couple of his ribs), saying no to sex (even if the guy says "do you know how much money I spent tonight" it's apparently okay to say no), the joys of fragrance, and how to make a sammich (tuna rarebit!).

Hey there, hi there, ho there... excellent write-up of Fullsteam over at Carpe Durham. I completely endorse that message. I've been surprised at the number of nay-sayers and quibblers that pop up online when Fullsteam gets mentioned. Not surprised at the haters. There's always gonna be haters online. Haters gotta be hatin' after all. I haven't loved every Fullsteam beer I've tried. But some of the responses I've seen have been baffling (comparing the beers to PBR? complaining that you can't taste sweet potato in the Carver and that anyone who says they can is falling for hype?). Whatever, yo.
But one of the things I really appreciate about Fullsteam is how willing they are to engage in online discussions. So I'm learning all sorts of stuff about the bizness. Latest fascinating thing (which I'd seen somewhere before -- BCR, maybe?) is that ALE (state liquor licensing) has required them to start serving food in order to serve wine. Apparently they were okay to serve beer w/o having a food menu. But in order to add wine (I'll leave it to y'all to ponder why someone would want to go to a brewery to drink wine), they needed to start serving food. I think I mentioned that last time we were there, for A/V Geeks, I noticed that they were serving tamales. Which they get from Dos Perros.
In related news, there's another A/V Geeks show at Fullsteam this coming Wed. (11/17). w00t!

What with the time lag on all my Vegas recaps and the generally hectic quality of the month so far, I never got around to talking about World Beer Festival back at the start of October. I assume that the move from DAP to DBAP has allowed them to sell more tickets cos it used to be that it sold out early and this time I didn't decide to go until mid-September I think and I had no problem getting a ticket. And I'm pretty sure they were sending out messages up until the day before that there were still tix available. It was crowded, of course, but the space was pretty well organized so that it was mostly easy to get around. I'd have preferred maybe a bit wider aisles (not sure if that's possible -- they might be using up all the space they're allowed to at DBAP already). It only took two or three people to decide that "hey, let's just stand here in the middle of the aisle and have a conversation" to make it pretty difficult to walk thru or get up to a booth to sample some beer. Pretty good options for food. I had a hot dog from Joey D's and a quesadilla from Tacos Jalisco. The quesadilla didn't make me forget la Vaquita but it was perfectly okay. The dog was good but I still prefer NYC-style (Papaya King) dogs. This was a more upstate (Buffalo, NY) style dog.
Went to the afternoon session with friends. My only other beerfest visit had been to the evening session and none of the people I'd been planning to meet there actually bothered to show up. So right from the jump this was a much better time. With so many things to sample, it's more fun with a group. That way you can point each other to stuff not to be missed, as well as warn folks off things you didn't like.
Among my faves were:
saison from Natty Greene (Greensboro)
IPA from Skull Coast (Fort Mill, SC)
Xmas beer from Great Lakes (Cleveland)
Workingman's Lunch from Fullsteam (Durham!)
Hot Rod Red from Aviator (Fuquay-Varina, NC)
cask IPA from Legend (Richmond)
Stuff I was not so crazy about:
pumpkin ale from Big Boss (better than last year's I think but still not close to Dogfish Head's)
sour beer from Natty Greene (sour is apparently the new hotness in beer; I was unimpressed)
Antebellum Ale from Craggie (described as an authentic 19th century brewing style; easily my least favorite thing I tasted all day and the only thing I actually threw out w/o finishing)
I'm still undecided on the cinnamon porter by Roth (Raleigh). I really liked it in the small sample glass but I don't know if I could get through an entire pint.