Today wasn't so much about walking (I walked around Historic Fredericksburg for maybe 30-40 minutes before sitting down to lunch with my buddy Mike) as it was about prepping for tomorrow's dinner. Mike's family has a housekeeping lady who is something of a hand-me-down from Mike's brother-in-law; she apparently comes by once every two weeks, and the prospect of her arrival today (she was to clean from about 9 a.m. to around 1 p.m.) prompted me to put on my introvert hat and leave the house earlier than 9 a.m. I regretted this since meeting the lady would have given me an opportunity to practice some Spanish with her. So I spent a lot of time driving up and down Route 1. I even stopped at a Starbucks to compare the experience of an American Starbucks to a Korean one. Conclusion: I really don't like either of them, and all those hypocritically anti-corporate liberals who love their Starbucks and their Apple products (full disclosure: I'm not a liberal, but my home desktop and laptop are both Apple products) can go hump each other.
After wasting time tooling around, I went to take a short walk along the canal path in Historic Fredericksburg before meeting my buddy Mike at Foode, the restaurant in the building where he works, for lunch. I took a lot of pics of the spring blossoms prominently displayed all over the Fredericksburg Altstadt. Our seating at Foode was rather unique: Mike's building is venerable and has been converted or repurposed more than once; part of the first floor used to be a bank, and Foode preserved the actual bank vault, which is where we'd been given a table (Mike had made reservations). The vault had apparently held safety-deposit boxes, according to Mike. I was in a "to hell with it" mood, lazily promising myself that I'd take care of my utterly wrecked blood sugar upon my return to Korea, so I ordered the "Fredericksburger" (since it came with no onions) with tater tots. Mike got a fairly unhealthy (but apparently very tasty) omnibus breakfast sandwich... also with tater tots, which Mike had recommended. My burger was fantastic, as were the bad-for-you tater tots. Mike's sandwich, with its craggy-looking bread, reminded me of a keto burger. Our server had also mentioned an array of possible specials; I ordered the Bananas Foster on a vol-au-vent-style puff pastry as dessert. When it came out (we were given two spoons—how romantic), I immediately thought the puff pastry was nearly impossible to cut through with the spoon, so I used my knife to be able to pierce the resistant bottom. Otherwise, it was a great-tasting dessert, with the rum taking kind of a back seat (not a complaint! I liked that).
Upon returning to Mike's house after 2 in the afternoon, I saw that the housekeeping lady had left, and Mike's son had been placed in charge of making the night's dinner. Mike's son is talented in several areas, but he's also a good cook. He asked me to try his tomato sauce, and I found it delicious. I got to work prepping the gyro meat for Thursday's dinner—a 50-50 combo of ground beef and ground lamb, herbed, spiced, and seasoned with my generically Middle Eastern seasoning (the same seasoning I'd used for the previous meal of Moroccan-inspired chicken; see the spice combo below). I also made twenty flatbreads from Charles's eternally useful recipe. Normally, I make batches of four; this was my first time making so many at once, and it took me a while. While Mike's son cooked his sauce and added crumbled sausage to it, I finished prepping the meat and turned my attention to the flatbread. Prepping the flatbread was technically simple but time-consuming. I rolled out the twenty 80-gram dough balls and pan-cooked them in five batches; I finished after Mike and his wife had come home from their respective jobs. Mike's wife made a salad to accompany her son's meal (the pasta turned out to be penne, which Mike noted is not normally served with a meat sauce—a claim that seems to be contradicted online; I'd certainly never heard that claim before).
The beef/lamb combo was put in a Ziploc bag and left in Mike's meat freezer to harden up. Tomorrow, I'll bring it out, let it thaw for an hour, then cut it into gyro-meat slices for pan-frying. The flatbreads (technically naan, but now repurposed for Greek-ish food) are also Ziploc'ed away and will be reheated tomorrow evening at dinnertime. Tzatziki is already done; I tasted it again today, and it tasted about spot-on. Still to do: shred some lettuce (but lately, I never use lettuce myself), halve some cherry tomatoes, cube up some cucumbers, chop up some olives, put the crumbled feta into a bowl, and Bob's your uncle.
When I did my short walk earlier today, I took a lot of pics, and I took some pics, later on, of meal prep. Take a look:
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| My buddy Charles apparently watches over the dead. |
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| Mike says this is a Masonic cemetery. |
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| stormtrooper graffito |
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| a Lady Banks rose...? |
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| lots of tulips in Historic Fredericksburg |
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| our bit of virtue-signaling for the day |
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| Cherry blossoms... I wonder what's going on in Korea. |
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| purplish tulips |
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| "Feed me, Seymour!" |
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| Cercis chinensis (Chinese redbud), like at Skyline Drive |
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| We have this plant in Korea. |
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| Nandina or sacred bamboo |
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| lovely tree on full display |
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It's not just Koreans who love abstract sculpture: behold "Dancing Milkweed."
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| possibly a "lady tulip" |
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| walking toward the trail |
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| I barely had time to walk a short segment of the trail before I had to head to Foode for lunch. |
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| a virtuous dog shits out Thor's hammer |
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| Turtle... I've never seen one in the wild in Korea. |
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| nice picnic spot, but no shade |
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| Not the same thing, but this reminded me of all those 배수문/baesumun (drainage gates) in Korea. |
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| quaint houses along Princess Anne Street, Historic Fredericksburg |
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| human assholes |
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| another house in what is sometimes called FXBG, i.e., Fredericksburg |
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| Impressive wrought iron reminded me of a chick I knew who loved wrought-iron works. |
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| more cherry blossoms |
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| I guess wreaths aren't just for Christmas. |
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| Fredericksburg Baptist Church from a distance |
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| St. George's Episcopal again |
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| Read some history. |
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| the building where Mike works |
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| My/our recalcitrant dessert. |
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| But it tasted great. |
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| spice/seasoning/herb combo for the beef and lamb |
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| most of the flatbreads, done |
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| a few still undone |
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| the Missus's quick salad to supplement the son's pasta dinner |
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| photo taken before I ate it all |
Today was a carby contrast to my effort yesterday. I'll be paying for this, I'm sure. But I'm back in Korea on the 15th (leaving on the 13th), which means I'll be back to my weird existence as a jobless singleton, no longer a world traveler.
Tonight's agenda before sleeping: watch a few more episodes of Season 3 of "The Expanse," which has a lot of flaws but is admittedly engrossing. Tomorrow: finish up those veggies in time for Thursday-evening dinner for seven people.
