Hello Chicago

Hi all. I'm back after the Christmas break. Did you miss me? Guess what? I can drive! I finally have my driving licence, ten years after I became eligible to get it. Woo hoo! More on this later. Now I'm off to frolic round the room.

Quince paste

Before there was Alinea, with its bacon on swings, there was the nouvelle cuisine of Charlie Trotter's. Since they charge $100 per person if you don't turn up for your booking, Elizabeth and I braved the worst snowstorm of the winter in Chicago to venture there on Thursday night. Ironically, being impoverished grad students, we had to take public transport and thereby arrived in good time, unlike all the rich SUV-owners who turned up hours late for their bookings throughout the evening.*

The dinner was pretty awesome. There were about ten tiny courses. Here are some of the things we ate:

Quince ice cream with quince paste
Roast squab with white truffles
Chocolate tart with smoked chocolate (smoked by the smoke of a volcano on the South Sea island where the cocoa grew. Seriously.)
Yellowtail with sauce made out of foam and the foot of a scallop

Mmm. Plus they printed Elizabeth's name on the menu since it was her birthday.**

* Actually we arrived two hours early since I was convinced the bus would get stuck in the snow and made us leave at 3.30. Luckily we were able to sit out the wait at Ethel's Chocolate Lounge, a concept drinks establishment right up there with the custom milkshake place in Bath.

** Actually, not technically her birthday. I will be in England (indeed I am now in England) learning to drive (again) for the actual date.

Musinewsy

First things first: my white-hot ukulele stylings (including a guitar/uke solo in thirds on "Alexander the Great") can now be had from Will's website. Hooray. Secondly, Mike Harding's show on Radio 2 last week was particularly good, involving covers of every song on the Beatles' Rubber Soul covered by folk artists. Of particular note were John Tams'* "Girl," accompanied by only a sampled footstep sound, and Spiers and Boden's "Run For Your Life" (described as "an English murder ballad"). If anyone has the wherewithal to record the show (which will be on the BBC website until Wednesday) I'd love to have a copy -- my computer seems to have a nervous breakdown every time I try to record BBC radio.

* Weirdly, I discovered while jet-lagged and watching UK Gold at 3am this morning that John Tams is also one of the Chosen Men in Sharpe. The one who used to sing the folk songs, obviously.

The Trews

So -- I like this song by The Trews that has been on the radio a couple of times recently. It's called "Yearning" and you can listen to it here. I shall buy the album I think. Yes, it sounds a bit like Pearl Jam. But they have a guitar-interplay thing going on that reminds me of early Television, and a little drop-D bit in the solo that sounds somewhat like Shoot-Out-the-Lights-era Thompson, so I'm happy. When you look them up on iTunes, it says "customers who downloaded The Trews also downloaded: Foreigner." D'Oh!

In other news, Elizabeth swears that there is someone who works in the library coffee shop who looks just like Duncan, but until we have photographic proof, you'll just have to imagine him.