Somebody left a salad out on the curb, with no bowl around it

So one of the nicest surprises at Readercon this year had nothing to do with the convention itself: it was my discovery of Clover Food Lab.

If you have been to the Burlington Marriott at any time in the last . . . ever . . . you will remember that it is not exactly close to anything but the Burlington Mall and is functionally inaccessible except by car or the 350 bus, which is actually a mobile antechamber of Hell. Therefore, not starving at Readercon depends on (a) your ability to tolerate the hotel restaurants, which as of the past year's renovations have consolidated into an business-trendy, ear-shattering bar and grill that had its own DJ and held an '80's dance night on the Saturday of the convention (b) having time in your schedule to order in from one of the nearby restaurants, of which there is not a dearth if you can get far enough away from the hotel (c) knowing a friend with a car. Saturday afternoon before the Miscellany, sairaali, gaudior, rushthatspeaks, derspatchel and I were all going out for dinner: my cousins had collected my husband in Somerville and were meeting Saira and me at the hotel. This was a flawless plan until we realized we had no idea where we were going—we needed somewhere quick, inexpensive, edible, and at least partly vegetarian. Pick . . . one? We were on our way to the Burlington Mall to try to scrounge our respective meals from the food court and other installations when a miraculous oasis appeared in the desert of food options: a tiny strip mall containing the aforementioned Clover, a b. good, and SlowBones BBQ. And seriously, it was like manna. Rob tried SlowBones and came back with pulled pork on naan with some spicy sauce that was not fooling around. Gaudior, Rush, and Saira returned from b. good with an array of burgers, including vegan, that apparently lived up to the chain's name. And I walked into Clover with a combination of curiosity and skepticism, having seen the Harvard Square location open and written it off as a Kubrickian art installation (seriously, the space is cavernous and the lighting on both levels is all wrong; it put me off before I could even look at the menu), and they were one of the nicest random food experiences I've had in a long time.

I had to sing at the Miscellany in a couple of hours. Anything with cheese or milk was right out. Clover's menu varies daily; I had never looked at their selection before; I said as much to the counterperson. I needed something dairy-free, I have no allergies to gluten, lots of protein would be favorite. Help? And they went through every item on the menu with me (they are vegetarian by default, vegan by option, I have no idea of their kosher status) until we settled on the egg and eggplant sandwich: a wheat pita stuffed with hummus, cucumber and tomato salad, a sliced hardboiled egg, tahini, and an extremely large round of lightly fried eggplant.¹ It was delicious. It was huge. It had no structural integrity whatsoever. I did not care: I ate it happily; it did not make me ill; and in fact I just ordered the same tonight from the Harvard Square location, which remains a terrible use of space and lighting and takes orders on the same model as an Apple store, but makes really fantastic food. Also, basil lemonade. Tastes exactly the way you think it would, only less sweet. Very fresh basil. Would buy again from seller.

Would also buy again from Zinneken's (Belgian Waffles Made by Actual Belgians). Rob and I ended up there after dinner and a visit to Rodney's in Central Square. The Liège waffle is ridiculous, sweet and chewy and not at all as heavy as the fried dough it resembles by description; I was not surprised to see when I got home that the batter was an outgrowth of brioche. Put some whipped cream and some dark chocolate on top of a piping-hot Liège waffle and you do not need to contemplate dessert for another twenty-four hours, except to speculate faintly on the toppings you will try when you come back. The concept of putting Speculoos on a waffle perplexes and intrigues me. They have Brussels waffles, too, and I will probably try one just for the sake of comparison, but seriously: caramelized pearl sugar. I had no idea. Next time with whipped cream and strawberries, in honor of the World's Fair.

Basically, today was great. Rush-That-Speaks helped us take the cats to the vet for their last round of shots, after which she doesn't need to see them again for a year; I helped Rush chop an endless pound of currants for black cake, for which the various chopped fruits are now marinating in Manischewitz and dark rum for a month; I met Rob in Harvard Square and dinner was as previously described. Rodney's netted me a first edition of W.L. White's They Were Expendable (1942), just hanging out on the shelf of dollar books. I had already picked up Maurice Dekobra's The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars (1925) while waiting for Rob at the Harvard Coop and Andrea Hairston's Redwood and Wildfire (2009) arrived in the mail just before we left the house. A lot of books happened to me today. I am not displeased.² And some news in the mail which I will announce when I can.

I don't feel like I can be secure in happiness, right now. But I can enjoy the hell out of it when it happens.

1. Apparently that's actually a sabich. Man, I wish Clover put mango pickle on theirs. I wonder if I can make that happen.

2. While I am listing books, my Readercon haul was composed of Michael Cisco's Member (2013), which is fun to ask for out loud; Pink Narcissus Press' Queer Fish: Volume 2 (2012), containing strange_selkie's Vermeer porn "Camera Obscura: Two Ghosts"; and Peter Dickinson's A Summer in the Twenties (1981), a present for my mother which I expect to read some time I drop by the house—she introduced me to his mysteries. Also the broadside of shweta_narayan's poem "Nettle-Stung," illustrated by the author and hand-printed by Kitabiyat Press: it is the reward for preordering the print version of Saira Ali and Julia Rios' In Other Words. It is gorgeous and thorny, unavailable any other way. The anthology is an extraordinary cross-section of contemporary writers of color, fiction and poetry both, and all proceeds go to Con or Bust. Ignore the fact that this advice is in a footnote and buy one!

I was raised with the knowledge of slamming gates

First half of today: insomnia, work, dentist's appointment, ongoing hassle with insurance, canceled appointment; sucked.

Second half of today: handful_ofdust posts some Leslie Howard and Peter Lorre for me and derspatchel and I broil salmon and scallops for dinner, our first attempt at seafood (a) together (b) in a house with cats. We may have cheated slightly by shutting the cats in Rob's office while we cooked, but they don't seem to be holding it against us—I have two sacked-out, softly purring cats in this basket chair behind me as I type. They seem to like sleeping on my clothes. Hestia used to curl up on my sweater until I moved it, after which she started curling up on my leather jacket. If I'm sitting at my desk, Autolycus drapes himself across my knees and dozes off as I work. Rob thinks the way we smell is familiar to them. I have difficulty expressing how protective I feel toward these cats. Djavvy and her children were the cats of my childhood; I grew up sleeping in the scent of their fur and the sound of their purring, but I was never responsible for them. These are the cats of my adulthood. I take care of them. And they did not interfere with any of our very delicious, buttery, crisp-skinned salmon and the sweetest scallops I have eaten in years. Second half of today sucked a lot less, is what I am saying. There was even a lemon.

Postscript, because I was finishing up this post when I followed the Facebook link. It happened in April, but I just found out that The Shondes—a queer Jewish activist punk band of which I have been quite fond since discovering them in March—were banned from the Washington D.C. Jewish Community Center for their political views on Israel and Palestine, i.e., for being pro-Palestinian. See this interview, comments, and open letter by the band. DCJCC, what the hell. Problem of which this incident is the microcosm, ditto.