The things I find on my computer...

Huh. I just found this on my iphoto desktop thing. I guess it's my son, Eric, impersonating a lamp? I do know one thing - that's not his bedroom and it's not my house.

Eric's got a tough life. Tomorrow he packs for his five day trip to LA and NAMM, yesterday and today he spent in the studio recording four or five new songs with his band, Flamingo, and yes they are definitely doing a show at the New York Knitting Factory on February 7 -- you can buy tickets right here.

So there's an eating fest in University City all this week - all of the best restaurants have prix fixe dinners topping out at $30; most $20 or $25 for three courses. Julie and I have our week all planned. Tomorrow we will be dining for $25 at Bubble House at 3404 Sansom Street as follows:

Starters
Lemon Grass Dumplings
Pork & Shrimp Suimei, Chicken Teriyaki or Flavorful Vegetable with Soy Vinaigrette Dipping Sauce
-or-
Mixed Green Salad
With your choice of dressing: Miso Vinaigrette, Toasted Sesame, Sriracha Ranch, & Strawberry Vinaigrette
-or-
Sweet Potato Fries
With tangy Orange Ginger Sauce

Entrees

Thai Red Coconut Curry Chicken or Tofu
Spicy, Rich and Creamy Coconut Milk based Curry with Basil, Lemon Grass, Scallion and Carrots served over Rice

Grilled Salmon with a Fuji Apple Glaze
Grilled Salmon over Snow Peas and Wasabi Mashed Potatoes with a rich Fuji Apple Glaze

Bibim Bap
Our take on a traditional Korean dish. Grilled Marinated Chicken, Beef or Shrimp
On a bed of Greens, Basil, Mint, Daikon and Carrots over rice with a tangy Sesame Lemon Vinaigrette

Desserts
Chocolate Ginger Mousse
-or-
Xando
Cinnamon and Sugar coated, Fried Cheese Cake Roll with Raspberry Sauce
-or-
Crème Brulee Medley for 2
Assortment of three

I'm thinking I'm having the sweet potato fries, the grilled salmon, and there's no way in hell I'm passing up fried cheese cake.

Julie, whose body is obviously her temple unlike mine, which I treat like...God, I don't even want to imagine the simile...wants the Bibim Bap. I like the way those words sound, even if it's not a dish I'd choose. Bibim Bap. Bibim Bap. Cool name for a band. The Bibim Baps. Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm a sick puppy.

Hey, speaking of bands, another really great Rock School alumni band, Atlas, is playing at The Khyber tomorrow night and they're awesome. It's a late show, damn it, or I'd go because it's over 21 and most of the Rock School kids who would normally fill the place up are 18-20. Anyway, at the very least go to Atlas' site and listen to their music...very nice stuff.

Here's the link to Flamingo, Eric's band. When you listen to the muscianship in both Flamingo and Atlas, you can really see where some day you'll be watching Behind the Music and there's going to be all these bands out there who say "Yeah, I was in Paul Green's School of Rock Music".

I was just thinking: Eric and Julie would make really sucky candidates for Behind the Music. The worst story either one of them can come up with about their childhood is "My mother is a hippie who thinks the CIA killed John Lennon. And...and...when we were little, she told us it's okay if we swim naked in the backyard pool..and...and...ooh, ooh, here's one...sometimes she gave us cake for breakfast and pancakes for dinner even though we don't like cake for breakfast and pancakes for dinner because we are health conscious and thin, despite our mother's terrible dietary habits."

So that's pretty much it for today. I did a bit of writing this afternoon once Matt and Julie cleared out of here. They're going to a concert tonight but should be home by around 9:00 p.m., just in time for Eric to arrive here with girlfriend, Carolyn, whom I believe is also spending the night.

Arghhh...I'm so glad for that fountain pen and journal since it appears I'm going to be banished upstairs this evening. But one thing I still haven't mastered is this: How do left handed people use a fountain pen without smearing? I have an artist friend who is also a lefty...hmmm...and he strikes me as a fountain pen user (because he's British and a writer? Ha ha - no, it's not Neil Gaiman) so maybe I'll drop him an email and see if he can't provide me with any tricks of the trade. I've been loving that pen, though -- I just need to get used to that line of black smear that extends from the top of my left pinky top to my left wrist.

Oh well. It looks like I have a couple of hours left before this house starts to fill again so let me go at least have a read at what I wrote today and pray I don't projectile vomit.

Later xo

Three Days in New York City - #6 best small press novel, 2005

Julie Slick on bass outside of the Los Angeles Guitar Center

Fingers crossed for Julie, by the way. She's got an audition Wednesday night with a very cool, established band -- I'd post a link to their website but I don't want to jinx anything. I listened to four of their songs and they're really, really good and right up Julie's alley musically. So here's hoping and stay tuned later this week for more details.

In other news...

Holy cow, I really did come in at #6 in the Predators and Editors poll, best small press novel 2005. If you don't believe me, here's the final standings.

So that's way cool and hopefully all of you voters/readers are breathlessly waiting for the sequel which I completed a few months ago. As soon as I have any news on that as far as publication, well, you know I'll be putting up the usual billboards.

Hey, do you guys know about this site... Free Albums? Definitely worth checking out.

Anyway, I know it's been pretty dull here at Robin Slick's blogworld lately but this week should be totally exciting. Eric will be taking his laptop and digital camera to Hollywood and NAMM with him on Wednesday and will be feeding me daily reports and photos while he hobnobs with biggies in the music industry and all of his rock star pals. I will try not to eat my heart out and kick myself for not tagging along on this trip, but hey, I know, I know, I gotta cut the cord one of these days and it may as well be now. Ugh, I should have waited until something less exciting came along to do that, huh, but good timing was never one of my better traits.

Later,
xo

You're kidding me...did I end up on a Star Trek forum board or something?

Okay, look, I'm totally shocked, but right now I'm #6 at the Predators and Editors poll for best small press novel, 2005. Voting ends at midnight tonight. So if you haven't pulled the lever, obviously I won't be torturing you anymore after this, so please vote for Three Days in New York City right here.

I really am in said parallel universe. But to whoever you all are voting for me, THANK YOU.

Also, I can rest easy now...Neil Gaiman was kind enough to post the Temple University reading info on his blog. Anyone want to go with me? It's on Thursday, January 26.

"Neil Gaiman's reading at Temple University has been moved to
Main Campus, Mitten Hall 1913 North Broad Street(at Broad
and Berks), which is located one and a half blocks up Broad
Street from the Cecil B. Moore subway stop. The reading is
scheduled to begin at 8:00 P.M."

So that's about it for now. Eric is rehearsing with Flamingo; Julie is with Matt; and the dog and I are contemplating ordering Thai take-out.

Oh, I know what else. I found a really cool music site for some hard to find CDs, or even better, CDs you never even knew existed. Click here.

Mind you, I like all kinds of music - everything from the blues to punk -- but I really dig sixties/early seventies British rock. I just found some impossible to get Procol Harum CDs. Hey, if you aren't hip to Gary Brooker, you should be, no matter what your age. But I must admit, I almost had heart failure a few weeks ago when I was watching TV, clicking through the channels, and saw the movie, Evita. Now obviously I despise Madonna, but there was a group of men singing a great rock song in the movie so I lingered there. One of the vocalists sounded really familiar, and then I saw his face, and HOLY SHIT it was Gary Brooker. Seeing him in that movie was way weird; even weirder was seeing how my heroes have aged. But nothing was as big a shock to me as seeing Peter Gabriel last year...

Oh what the fuck. He still sounds great. I hate when people diss older artists. What, Keith Richards can't play guitar anymore because he's 60? And Keith Richards jokes are so cliched. I think the guy is handsome/sexy. I hope I look that good at sixty...and certainly hope I'm still cool.

What's that? I'm not still cool? Be quiet, kiddies. Oh. They aren't even here. It's their little evil voices I'm hearing in my head. Best to sign off and go eat some Thai food, huh.

xo

Final days to vote; I'm reading at the Spring (?) Writers festival, and Where the hell do I get Neil Gaiman tickets for the Philly reading?

I'm on my knees here one final time, asking you to vote for Three Days in New York City as your favorite small press novel, 2005. Voting ends midnight Sunday.

You'll just have to conjure up your own mental image of yours truly on her knees for now but rest assured I am not above pulling out my webcam if you guys land me anywhere in the top ten.

So in case you haven't gotten around to doing so, I promise, I'll leave you all alone after this, but here, once again, is the link.

And from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

Also, I know I've mentioned this before and you know I'll be mentioning it again but it's the first time I've seen the press release:

Spring 2006 Poets and Writers Festival
On January 31, Philadelphia Stories joins the Community College of Philadelphia for their annual Spring 2006 Poets and Writers Festival. Our reading will be held at 5:15 on the main campus at 1700 Spring Garden Street. Readers will be: Robin Slick, who is widely published on both the web and in print. Her novel, Three Days in New York City, was recently published courtesy of Phaze/Mundania Press and is available in paperback at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Voices and Visions Bookstore. The sequel, Another Bite of the Apple, has just been completed and is currently awaiting publication in 2006. Randall Brown is a fiction editor with SmokeLong Quarterly, an MFA in Writing candidate at Vermont College, a recipient of a 2004 Pushcart nomination, and a three-time winner of Zoetrope Workshops Top Story. His work has appeared in many publications, including his story "Flies: Wet, Dry and In-Between," which appeared in the Summer issue of Philadelphia Stories. David Floyd was born in Philadelphia and currently teaches at Rutgers University-Camden and Temple University. His book-length manuscript The Sudden Architecture of the Dark was recently a finalist for the 2005 TampaReview Prize for Poetry and the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. He lives in Lansdowne, PA, and can be found reading poems by Jack Gilbert; Plato's Republic, and Lauren Grodstein's collection of short stories, The Best of Animals.


So that's pretty cool.

Now. To find out where the hell to buy tickets to see Neil Gaiman at Temple University Center City Campus. Like I said, five minutes from my house, I went to the campus and the security guard looked at me like I was crazy.

"Who you want?"

"Neil Gaiman."

"Who that?"

"A writer. He's supposed to speak..."

"He not here."

"I know he's not here, he's...never mind. Can I speak to...I dunno, the librarian?"

"She on the main campus."

(Which is like three miles away and in a place where I got lost within minutes only to eventually be told the same thing (he not here) and sent back to the Center City campus five minutes from my house)

Anyway, what I did manage to find out is that Temple University is still on Christmas break and that the staff and students do not return until this coming Tuesday, so I'll let you know how I make out then.

Sigh...it would have been so much easier to go to New York on Monday and see him there.

xo

Odds and Sods for January 12, 2006

So when Julie and Eric played the Rock School Music Player Live Event (MPL) in New York City with Adrian Belew, Jack Bruce, John Mayer et al back in October, one other performer I forgot to mention was Lisa Loeb.

It was strange and I didn't quite get it at the time, not being a real Lisa Loeb fan or anything and so overwhelmed by the fact that Jack Bruce was listening to my daughter tell him what a major influence he had on her bass playing, but there were people with massive video equipment following Ms. Loeb everywhere she went at the event like she was the freaking star of the show (trust me, she was not).

So through the grapevine, I found out that the entire MPL concert was filmed for her new (trying hard not to gag at the phrase) reality show and will be televised starting January 22.

#1 SINGLE (E!) - The cable channel has confirmed the Lisa Loeb-led dating series will premiere Sunday, January 22 at 10:00/9:00c. Here's how the network's press materials describe the half-hour project: "Being single in the city takes on a new twist in this new series following Billboard-topping singer Lisa Loeb on her quest to have it all: love, success; career and family. And E! Entertainment Television’s new unscripted series will be there to capture each step in the process. Newly single, Loeb is moving back to New York, where she will dip her toe into the dating pool for the first time since college. The performer’s one-of-a-kind approach to life will be the subject of this new eight-part half-hour series."
*****

Bleh. Oh, sorry...

Anyway, it's just a guess, but if you tune in, I'm sure you're going to see some familiar faces because there's just no way the Music Player Live Event is on the cutting room floor. I mean, there were superstars on stage that night...

But yeah, okay, I'm probably dreaming -- the show is about her so I'm sure it's just her performance you're going to see but perhaps there will be backstage shots of the kids, etc.

I thought she was married to the bald Zappa kid and they had some kind of weird cooking show on TV together but what do I know -- oh, it does say she's "newly single".

Wait, hang on: Eric just woke up and told me that he had to sign a Release for her show, and so did Rock School sax player/vocalist Dom Malandro and maybe some other kids...hell, now I really do have to watch it!

Actually, the whole Les Paul meet-up at MPL with Rock School and performance with CJ Tywoniak, Eric Slick, and Max DiMezza was filmed as well for a documentary. I recently read that the PBS crew we met that day has been following Les around for a year for this project, and as soon as I get more news in that regard, I'll let you know immediately.

Other than that, there's nothing new...I have a couple of short stories which should be popping up in some magazines shortly and I'll post the links when they do; there's a Rock School tribute to Jethro Tull at Indre Studios this weekend and barring any water on the roof or any other lovely homeowner/parental incidents, I will be there to see the last of the original Rock School kids perform one final time although scratch that, I'll be at the King Crimson show in the spring and Eric tells me that when he goes on tour with Project Object, the Rock School All-Stars will probably open for them when they play Philadelphia (yes!)...so I'm sure I'll still be around.

And that may or may not be it for now...I haven't gotten the news of the day from Julie and Eric yet and I'm still waiting on some other new and exciting publishing news of my own, so...

Later xo

Eric Slick with Project Object!

That's a photo of Eric playing with Project Object at World Cafe in November, 2005.

And guess what? Eric is now drummer for Project Object and will be going out on tour with them from April 14-May 14, 2005, returning home one day before his 19th birthday which I can guarantee you now, will be the blow-out of the century. Here's the details:

Project/Object Spring Tour
April/May 2006
The Music Of Frank Zappa

Andre' Cholmondeley - guitar, vocals
Dave Johnsen - bass, vocals
Robbie Mangano - guitar, vocals (selected shows)
Eric Slick - drums, vocals, electronics
Eric Svalgard - keys, vocals
Ike Willis - guitar, vocals

-the tour is "Eastern 1/2 of the USA"
-BRAND NEW Project/object sets
-Special "Joe's Garage" set due to Ike's solo presence


So how freaking cool is that!

It's already being discussed on the Zappa forum board right here along with some congratulations and that same photo I posted above. There's also another blurb somewhere on the forum but I can't find it. All I can say is, if you are forum board savvy, you'll probably locate it easily. I am not. Those things scare me.

Oh man, if they have an end of tour concert at the World Cafe Live in Philly as is there usual custom I will personally see that it is sold out both shows...you know me, I'll start posting the billboards now, both physically and via the worldwide web. Seems to me I once got drunk and even joined that aforesaid Zappa forum board -- I'll have to try out my usual screen name and password to see if it works but I'm getting a vague memory of hanging out buzzed and discussing Zappanale with people there...and then I lost where the thread was and never went back....yeah, that's what happened. Okay, then, I'll start a new thread where I can find it. Whatever!
******
But this isn't until April, and in the meantime, Eric's got all the stuff going on next week which I mentioned a few days ago, like going out to Hollywood, etc. and doing a Shannon Penn Band gig in February...I'm pretty sure Shannon has a bunch of shows lined up with Eric as well. So does Flamingo...there's that New York Knitting Factory show in early February. The boy is going to be busy doing what he loves. Lucky, lucky him.

Anyway, sorry for the tone of yesterday's post. I was in a funk but I feel better today. I started weirding myself out that I was becoming reclusive or worse, agorophobic. And then I read all of these blog posts written by people who went to the Neil Gaiman reading in NYC and had a blast and I beat myself up for not going...arghh...why can't I just admit I was tired and stressed from a weekend spent draining one thousand gallons of icy water off of my roof and didn't feel like taking the long train/cab ride to New York? No, I had to start diagnosing myself with psychiatric disorders and use a lot of four letter words.

Oh well. Can I blame it on artistic temperament?

Ack, the truth is, I'm insecure about some new material I've been working on...there are days the writing goes really well and other days I'm convinced it's complete garbage and I should just sell apples on the corner.

No matter. Julie and I are going out to breakfast this morning at the lovely Cafe Lutecia at 23rd and Lombard where they serve hot, fresh baked croissants and yeah, yeah, then I will do my dreaded banking and pharmacy run while Julie heads off to her first class of the day at Drexel U. In a perfect world, I'll even walk the mile or so home for exercise...bleh.

Or do it the usual Robin way and hail a cab.

Later...

xo

Yeah, yeah

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, but Three Days in New York City still has a chance of finishing up in a very respectable spot at Predators and Editors top small press novels of 2005 and voting ends on Sunday so please, please, please, if you haven't voted, here is the link.

I did ask you to vote for me earlier this month as your favorite Phaze author -- this is a totally different poll and I apologize for being such a huge bore, but it would be very cool to have Three Days finish in the top ten and would do much to help this black hole of depression swallowing me at the moment.

Yes, it's true. I've got a case of post-holiday blues and so do a lot of my friends. We've all kind of gone into hiding. One of my very best writer pals -- with several books published worldwide -- has had to take a day job which is a travesty because he's so incredibly brilliant but there you have it...we are one fucked up society right now with a skewed value system as concerns the arts and well, everything, really.

And unbelievably enough, after talking about it for weeks, I did not go to New York last night for the Neil Gaiman reading because all of a sudden, the thought of taking the train to Penn Station at rush hour and then making my way all the way up to 92nd Street just seemed so fucking unappealing -- maybe because I've been to New York at least one hundred times in the past year and I've finally decided I prefer Philadelphia because we have everything NY has except we are smaller, more accessible, and you can get a cab anytime and anywhere you want -- or, the real reason: Neil Gaiman is coming to Philadelphia in two weeks at a venue five minutes from my house so, like, it's not that I'm a crazed groupie who needs to see him twice in a month...

But I'm still a bit worried about myself. I haven't wanted to leave home at all lately...I just want to stay here and write and/or veg out alone. I suspect a lot of people go through that in January...but it's weirdly become agony for me to venture out even to do banking, etc. Though I must admit, I had a blast shopping for sushi supplies and cheesecake with Julie last week, so maybe it's just the mundane things I want to avoid right now.

And train rides to New York.

(Ha ha - if you've read Three Days, the opening chapter starts out with the female character on the train from Philly to NYC where she has a series of um, unfortunate incidents. The irony is not lost on me.)

Ah well, I do have other news including some cool stuff happening for Eric (can I trade lives with my son?) but this is just one of those posts where I need to vent and loosen up my fingers for my day's writing.

Sorry. I promise to be cheerier next time.

xo

Odds and Sods - January 8, 2006

So here's the latest addition to the Slick family guitar collection. We're all like little kids over this one. Cool, huh.

Hey, I'm still in that parallel universe. My book is hanging tough at #10 in best small press novels of 2005. If you haven't voted, here's the link to put a check mark next to Three Days in New York City. Thank you, thank you, thank you and if you write to me and tell me that you voted for my book, I will give you candy.

Nothing much else happening here except that I'm extremely jealous my son gets to go to The NAMM Show 2006 in Anaheim, California next week, where, among other things, he will hang out with everyone who is anyone in the music world (including his hero, Bill Bruford) and he'll perform a couple of songs with Mike Keneally on the John Lennon Bus. While he's out on the west coast, he's also got a gig Friday night at the LA Knitting Factory and is playing a party on Wednesday at the DigiTech party at NAMM.

That, and the lucky bastard gets to eat In-N-Out Burgers for five days.

In other Eric news, he's recording a new CD with his band, Flamingo and they're playing the New York Knitting Factory on February 7, 2006.

Much to Julie's dismay, she returns to Drexel University on Monday following Christmas break where she's taken a really heavy class load this semester, but she's got an upcoming gig with McRad in February and has some other fun stuff coming up this month, like her 20th birthday, so I'm not too worried about her.

Anyway, as I mentioned yesterday, a few friends of mine from Zoetrope Studios have won some pretty spectacular writing awards lately. Over at Night Train Magazine, my pals Myfanwy Collins, Kathy Fish, Todd Zuniga, and Jim Ruland were winners in the annual Richard Yates Short Story Awards. And Jim Tomlinson has won the Iowa Fiction Prize and his collection will be published in 2006. So good on them!

My life is a nightmare at the moment. It seems I have six feet of water on the roof because the gutters are filled with leaves, so yesterday's excitement had me threading a hose attached to a sump pump from the bathtub and up through the skylight in Eric's bedroom so that it could all be drained off before the dreaded visit to the roof today in freezing cold weather to do the unclogging thing. I wanted a one hundred year old house WHY? But I knew the doors weren't closing properly upstairs and then I heard a drip, drip, drip coming down through the fireplaces in my bedroom and living room, and I knew there had to be big trouble, especially as I just had a new roof put on just last year.

And now I learn Eric's girlfriend Carolyn is spending the day here, and I love her, but this is just not good...my other plan for this morning was to take down the dead, disgusting Christmas tree, but oh well, what's another day.

Right. But tomorrow I'm going to New York. Oh, okay, Tuesday then. And maybe sometime in between I'll get a chance to write?

A girl can dream...

Darling's

Um, that's what remains of a slice of Banana Foster Cheesecake from Darling's, 404 South 20th Street (20th and Pine) in Philadelphia. I'd eaten half the slice before I remembered I wanted to take a photo and write about it, so I put some whipped cream in the missing spot on the plate to make it look better.

(Have you noticed in the last few posts that even my dinner and dessert plates are black?)

Man, that was some fine cheesecake. Julie had the pumpkin, and the shop also offers Grand Marnier, cherry, and chocolate. It was sick!

"It's Philadelphia cheesecake, not New York," the owner told me. "Very rich and full of flavor, but lighter."

In the meantime, Julie and I saw slices of homemade coffee cake and pounced -- we munched on that before we even left the cafe. We both agreed it beats out the coffee cake at Le Bec Fin, that's how good it was...sickly full of butter, nuts, and cinnamon. Nadine's also offers lunch on baguettes baked on premises, and their fresh mozzarella and tomato is sprinkled with fine olive oil and cracked peppercorns and comes in at around $5.00 which is a hell of a lot cheaper than most downtown shops and the fact that they bake the rolls on premises....mmmmm.

In other news, my pal Leslie is meeting me in New York on Monday so I no longer have an extra Neil Gaiman ticket but what do I read this morning -- my luck -- he'll be in Philadelphia on January 26 speaking at the Center City campus of Temple University which is like a five minute walk from my house. Grrr....

(Neil: Would you like to have dinner with us beforehand? Hahahaha - Julie makes some mean sushi.)

(Just kidding, just kidding.)

Actually, it'll be cool to see him speak twice. Because I need to be inspired. I've been reading some of his older essays on writer's block, where do ideas come from, etc. and I think it's just the ticket (oy, a cliche) to get me out of my winter doldrums. I've been manic lately. I'll write for a few days straight, feel wonderful, then spend the next three days in my pajamas, not leaving the house and feeling sorry for myself because all I seem to do is veg out on line or worse, eat until I can't move because I'm putting tremendous pressure on myself...and...truth be told...now that I no longer have a real job, writing is my job, and naturally, since it's now a job...you get the picture. I am actually thinking of going back into the nine to five workplace a couple days a week just to break this self-destructive pattern!

Or not.

Both Julie and Eric are still asleep so I have no news on how their shows went last night. Julie played a big punk rock fest last night and Eric did some recording at Indre Studios so as soon as I talk with them, I'll be back with a full report.

Also, a couple friends of mine have won some pretty impressive writing contests/awards over the past two weeks and I've neglected to mention that...hmmm...it really requires a separate post complete with links to their work, so yeah, yeah, I will do another post on that by the end of the weekend as well.

But right now, it's coffee time...

xo

Julie plays with McRad tonight...she makes the world's greatest sushi...and I still have that extra Gaiman ticket for NYC

So come see Julie play bass with McRad tonight at The Chestnut Room. It's Philly punk night. (Wait. When isn't it?)

And I still have that extra Neil Gaiman ticket for Monday night but I guess if no one wants it and emails me, I will give it to one of the students standing in line an hour prior to the event in hopes of scoring one of the few remaining tickets at a discount. By the way, here's a really cool interview with Gaiman about the NY event.

Also, I know I'm being greedy because I've already asked you guys to vote for me as your favorite Phaze author, but it seems I'm listed on the Predators and Editors website as a candidate for all-around favorite author and book of 2005. Right. I have a real shot in hell on that one. But just in case, here's the link to vote for Three Days in New York City.

Ha ha - it's nice and cozy here in dream world where I live.

ETA: Hey, somehow I'm #10 on the list? What did I do, enter a parallel universe? Okay, please, please vote for me...I'm not beyond begging and carrying out strange favors in return.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. How was Julie's sushi? Well, obviously I'm typing this so she didn't kill me or herself.

Let me just say this. I've eaten at one of the finest sushi restaurants in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest is world famous for their fresh fish. I eat at the best sushi restaurants in Philadelphia and New York City all the time. Can I just say without any parental prejudice at all -- because God knows I call it as it is with Julie -- that she made some of the most incredible sushi I've ever tasted in my life? She made a spicy scallop roll with a chili aoili that was to die for and an inside out roll made with fresh tuna, avocado, wasabi cream cheese, and shredded carrot with a wonderful, vinegary sticky rice -- I mean, she flavored the rice like you would not believe, which blew me away and essentially made both dishes. She's raised the standard of sticky rice...I'll never be happy with the ordinary stuff again. Eat your heart out, Iron Chef. So I know you are dying to see the photos, and I am happy to oblige.

Ha ha - I just realized, in these photos you can really see how laid back I am about housekeeping, but you can also see examples of some of Julie's great artwork on the walls so how about if you just look at that and the food and pretend the messy table does not exist. First up, the scallop rolls:



Here's the tuna roll:



And now, in a total tease, I'm going to give you a preview of a future post about the dessert we had following the sushi, where I will talk about Darling's, a wonderful, wonderful cafe Julie and I stumbled on yesterday which is the "originator of the famous Bananas Foster Cheesecake". Since Eric is not a cheesecake fan, we bought him one of Darling's awesome homemade chocolate chunk brownies. Eric is slightly freaked out, both by how great the brownie was and that I snapped his photo while he was eating, especially as he had just taken a shower (hence the wet hair), but I love this photo because Monty dog is obviously trying to send us all telepathic messages that he would like a brownie as well. And yes, I know, it's January 6 and my Christmas tree is still up. So shoot me.