... and stops my mind from wandering where it will go.

In a job like YDS's sometimes you hear the same information from the same people more than once.  Heck, sometimes you hear it like a hundred thousand times.  The message is the same.  The audience is the only thing that changes, and YDS finds himself in that same audience too many times.

That repetition, in a positive vein, can fix the "hole[s] where the rain gets in," and allow for some very productive mind wandering.  Especially for someone who is homesick, and hungry.  When that hungry and homesick person takes notes on the wanderings of his mind (as YDS did yesterday), it can be sort of interesting and so I thought I would share those wanderings (and my annotations to those wanderings) with you, Dear Reader.  The following is what appeared in my notepad after the session.  To wit:

cheese and beer ...
perhaps a crusty bread

chicken wings and a wheat beer

a vodka plate and Russky Platinum
at kipoklu nams or the Russian Restaurant

Bischoff's fish and chips and a well-poured Guiness
with lots of vinegar

Fried oysters with slightly underdone steak fries and tooth-cracking cold Budweiser

Masitas de peurco with fried plantains and a mojito

Shrimp and scallops with a champagne tomatillo sauce over fresh pasta with a great Pinot Grigio.

Some thoughts on my wanderings. 

Cheese and beer is probably self explanatory.  But as I thought further, I was imagining that excellent Irish sharp cheddar in my mind, crumbling slightly as you cut it and standing up nicely to a hoppy IPA.  A big hunk of crispy crusty on the outside and moist on the inside sourdough to set it off just completes the culinary poem.

Chicken wings and a wheat beer.  Spicy chicken wings are among YDS's favorite food.  For all their cursed corporateness, Buffalo Wild Wings (formerly BW3's) has some of the best widely available sauce at their restaurants (although homemade is best).  It's too bad the quality of the chicken they buy is completely horrendous.  Anyway, half of their "Hot" and half of their "Spicy Garlic" strikes the perfect balance.  A good wheat beer has excellent mouth feel and stands up well to the spicy sauce.  It makes a perfect companion.

In Northern Europe, they drink a lot of vodka.  To cleanse your palate between shots of vodka (and YDS suspects to keep you drinking), they often will bite into a pickle or some kind of salted fish.  In fancy restaurants, to those that are drinking a lot of vodka, they serve what is known as a vodka plate, which is loaded down with pickles of all kinds, pickled cucumbers, olives, garlic, onions, etc.  And usually some salted meat and fish.  In a higher class place, there might be some caviar as well.  YDS was introduced to this excellent culinary/drinking experience in Riga, Latvia.  The Kipoklu Krogs (the Garlic Bar although I could swear it was the Kiploklu Nams or Garlic House when I was there) serves an excellent vodka plate, as does the fancy Russian restaurant (not suprisingly).  Given the finanical collapse in Latvia, YDS is not certain that either still exists.

Ireland has a fast food fish and chips chain called Beschoff's.  It's the best fish and chips I've ever had.  Plus they have all different kinds of fish, included smoked fish.  You may pickle your insides from the sodium, but you will enjoy it.  Perhaps the Guiness will balance out the salt.  Perhaps not.

Fried oysters might be my favorite food of all time, if it isn't chicken wings.  I have great memories of standing in a cold drizzle at the Oyster Festival in Urbana with a huge plate of fried oysters in one hand and trying to eat while balancing an ice cold Budweiser in the other hand.  The term "tooth cracking cold" comes from a theatre friend of YDS's and is the best way to drink a Budweiser, which even though it has it's charms and it's place, is not the best crafted beer in the world.  I'm not sure why the image of a slightly underdone steak fry jumped into my mind, but I love how there's a little firmness and extra potato "bite" to a big steak fry that isn't quite done.

There's a small Cuban fast food place in the basement food court of the International Building on I street in DC.  Their masitas de puerco (chunks of pork) are unbelievable.  I don't know how they make them, but most recipes require overnight marinating in bitter orange juice and lots of onions and garlic.  You deep fry the pork and cover with a buttery, oniony, garlicy sauce.  Holy smokes.  A mojito would go perfect with this meal, but sadly, the food court is dry....

The tomatillo recipe is one of the many masterpieces of YDS's chef sister.  I love tomatillos and seafood and this recipe is brilliant.  She recently shared the secret of the sauce in the family recipe book that I blogged about last year.  Fresh pasta is time consuming, but worth the wait...

If YDS was following the rules of essay construction, this would be the point at which I added a pithy conclusion about food and comfort and taste and memory and the association of food with love.  But YDS is an iconoclast and the conclusions at the moment seem awfully trite and unenlightening.  So I will close by saying, all this note taking has made me hungry...