schmindigo

Richmond

I hardly ever go to Richmond, & as far as I remember have never been in the particular neighborhood between Kaiser & the BART station. Since I was there this morning with time on my hands, I walked around looking for the Chinese restaurant. The neighborhood felt so very much like some of the faded Midwestern towns I remember (the ones with consistently inspiring Chinese restaurants) that I felt sure of striking gold.

Aha! Nothing to look at on the outside, but it was open already (since 7:30 am), so I went in to ask for a menu. I don’t know what I expected, but I was surprised to see the place more than half full, with mostly African American seniors chowing down on breakfast.

A glance at the menu told the tale: Chicken & Waffles breakfast special, $4.95! You get 3 waffles, 2 eggs, & your choice of 4 fried chicken wings or 4 sausages or 4 bacon. Try & beat that. If that’s too much food for you, how about Hot Oatmeal with milk for $1.85, or 2 eggs any style with toast & hash or grits for $2.95? “Popular Prices” indeed! I want to go back & eat there.

Chinese Culture Center

From the opening, jam-packed especially for a rainy Friday night:

Between all that Censusing, Chicago, & the CCC, this is about where I’m at right now:

If you’re one of my many neglected friends… you will see me, I promise, just as soon as I catch up on some sleep & wash at least the first layer of those dirty dishes piled in the sink.

Present Tense

In progress…

This especially goes out to anyone who has ever asked me: What are you going to do with all those Chinese takeout menus?! Well… at least some of them are going up on the walls of the Chinese Culture Center for this show:

WHAT: Present Tense Biennial: Chinese Character – an exhibition of

contemporary artwork by 31 artists that reflect and reinterpret China

WHEN: May 1 – August 23, 2009

OPENING: Friday May 1, 2009, 6:30 to 8:30pm

GALLERY HOURS: Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10am to 4pm; Sundays, 12 to 4pm

WHERE: Chinese Culture Center, 750 Kearny Street, 3rd Floor (inside the Hilton Hotel), between Clay & Washington Streets in San Francisco CA

ADMISSION: FREE

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Tamara Albaitis, Nancy Chan, Anita Wen-Shin Chang, Julie Chang, Thomas Chang, Sergio de la Torre, Cui Fei, Khiang H. Hei, Justin Hoover, Bu Hua, Arthur Huang, Suzanne Husky, Larry Lee, Sean Marc Lee, Liting Liang, Lucy Kalyani Lin, Ken Lo, Fang Lu, Maleonn, Elizabeth Moy, Ming Mur-Ray, Tucker Nichols, Nadim Sabella, Zachary Royer Scholz, Indigo Som, Charlene Tan, Patrick Tsai, Imin Yeh, Xudong Yu, David and Michelle Yun.

TRANSIT: 10 minute walk up Kearny Street from Montgomery BART station; parking at Portsmouth Square Garage directly across the Hilton Hotel

INFORMATION: 415-986-1822 or Present Tense website

Special thanks to curator Kevin Chen, who instigated, nudged, & encouraged me to find out what the menus wanted to do (besides hibernate in my studio closet). Kevin also stayed up till the wee hours last night, finishing the installation with Lucy Lin after Donna & I went home exhausted. They were doing the hard part, too, up by the ceiling. Thank you Kevin & Lucy! You’re lifesavers!

By the way, in the process of sorting through menus for this installation, I couldn’t help but notice that I still have no menus at all from the following states:

Arkansas

Delaware

Kentucky

Nebraska

North Dakota

South Dakota

Utah

West Virginia

What’s up with that?! You know what to do. Thank you!

Finally, just wanted to post a coupla pix from a very fun Chicago trip. Here is the fabulous Karen Tam with her bowl of jajangmyeon, which somehow became a running theme throughout our two days together.

Soft shell crab at Joy Yee Noodle aka boba heaven:

As you can probably guess, an excellent time was had by all. The students were a great bunch—quite possibly the sincerest pumpkin patch ever! Thanks again to Dan Wang for organizing, administering, hosting, chauffeuring, & being generally awesome, as he does tend to be.

Gainsville

Today's mail brought a manila envelope from Gainesville, Florida. When I opened it & took the two menus out, I saw that they had gotten wet & were stained with the orangey color of the envelope. Hurricane menus?! Awwww....

in the mailbox

Some days really bring a lotta love in the mailbox. From Holga buddy Doria comes a thematic Chinese restaurant T-shirt perfect for my next photo op. From city planning whiz Rolf, a CD of Mississippi & Alabama census maps. At the moment I am gazing fondly upon a map showing racial/ethnic diversity by census tract, for Birmingham. They do this by an Index of Qualitative Variation, "a measure ranging from 0.0 to 1.0 in which a higher score indicates greater diversity. A tract with a score of 1.0 would have even numbers of people across all racial/ethnic categories. A score of 0.0 indicates 'monoracial.'" Fascinating stuff.

Also a few days ago the mail brought a stack of menus from Washington DC. I didn't have any from there before that. Keep it coming, please Mr. Postman!

These things almost balance out the utter despair I feel over the fact that the bathroom is still leaking.

still good

The blackberry pie has been made, but I still need to make another one, this time not slacking off on the crust. In my impatience I used less-than-frozen butter & flour, & paid for it with a substandard crust. It's still good pie, but it is not The Blackberry Pie of my dreams.

The pelicans of Pt. Reyes, however, are perfect, & so is the blackberry picking on the way home from there.


In the mail today I got menus from Iowa & Indiana! Thank you, menu senders! Those were two states I didn't have anything from, until now.

Flower Mound

The Chinese Menu gods are listening... just when I was exclaiming how wrong it was that I had no menus from Texas (considering what a big state it is, & how many people live there), here come some in the mail from Shannon. Thanks, Shannon! She sent menus from Flower Mound, Texas, near Dallas. One of 'em has Cowboy Wonton Soup! You heard me right: Cowboy Wonton Soup, described as "turkey wontons, sliced chicken & fresh spinach all served in a refreshing chicken broth." What is so Cowboy about turkey? Or is it the spinach? Wouldn't you think Cowboy wontons, or Cowboy anything, would be made of... cows? Obviously I'm missing something here. The same restaurant also offers Old Lady Tofu, Pungent Lamb, and Smooth Crabmeat Wontons. Getting awfully poetic down there in Flower Mound....

diligent

We should all be so diligent... someone (who apparently isn't Chinese) actually made the effort to learn Chinese characters just so they could read menus in Chinese restaurants. I gotta hand it to this generous soul for putting their extensive info on the web for all the rest of us. There's so much here that I haven't even come close to reading it all. & the photos are cool too!