Food and Tea!

I am sitting in a coffee shop, listening to a Cold War Kids song (thank you, Andy) over and over on my iPod, halfway thinking about choreography and halfway thinking about . . . well, I'm not actually thinking about much else. I am, however, typing a blog entry. Perhaps, I will eventually share this site with, um, someone. Guess I'll see! Yesterday, David and I drove to Winston-Salem to eat at Mary's Of Course http://www.marysofcourse.com/. I hadn't been in probably over a year, although I used to go almost every weekend when I lived there. They have fantastic vegetarian options (not that I'm an actual vegetarian anymore, at all), and it was absolutely wonderful. If you live anywhere near there (or actually do live there and are a little pissed that I didn't get in touch with you when I was in town (a) sorry, I suck and (b) go to Mary's!) I got the vegan Tofu scramble which has tomatoes, squash, red onions
interruption, David has coined a fantastic word: Blognosticator.
that's right.
. . .
and tofu sauteed in Shoyu (which is similar to soy sauce but a bit sweeter). I got English muffins, and the stone-ground, yellow, extra-buttery grits. David, who is, shall we say, HIGHLY interested in pimento cheese, got an omelette with jalapeno pimento cheese, bacon, and red bell peppers, toast, and grits. I may have snuck a bite, and it may have been delicious, too. We were in town to see All In This Tea, which is a beautiful movie about a man who single-handedly creates a trade market in America for organic, handmade teas from China. http://lesblank.com/more/TeaFilm.html It was a Les Blank film, and Les was actually there to answer questions! He was dressed in old dark-blue Levi's and a bright, Hawaiian-y looking shirt, and Tevas, I think. Very casual. He answered questions, but he's certainly more of the quiet type, I think. :0) The showing was at the Reynolda House, and I'd never actually been inside the house. We wandered around some in there--they had a bowling alley, swimming pool, roller-skating lane, bar, and billiard table downstairs in their home. Whew! After the movie showing, there was a tea-tasting outside the house in a little lawn/garden area in front of the sun porch. It was delightful, but we didn't get in any talking with Mr. Blank himself. :-D

Later that evening, we ate dinner at the Federal and ran into Elliot at the convenience store. It was his birthday, so we had to follow him back to the Federal with our "present"--a fat, mini-sausage called "li'l Chub"--that we'd picked up at the convenience store and buy him a beer. We hung out for a bit with his friends; it was really nice outside. Gina and Elliot had gone to the Farmer's market that morning and bought steak, asparagus, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes and cooked that for his birthday dinner. The dinner sounded delicious, and they said that they certainly tasted the difference between the locally-grown produce and the conventionally-farmed kind that you buy at the grocery store. They made an interesting comment about the meat, though. The steak was a bit tougher, but it was tastier, than what they would get conventionally.

The psychologist in me would love to have a blind taste test comparing a locally-grown version of some food with a conventionally grown one. Now, don't get me wrong, I am completely in support of locally-grown foods for their environmental friendliness and of organic foods because of their ecological value, but of course I wonder how much the placebo effect creates a tastier morsel in the mouth of a local food "believer" than the same bite on the tastebuds of a pure-bred grocery-store goer.