Local Seasonal Yumminess Includes Baseball Players
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Last Saturday, I ended up sharing a late dinner with Hyoun at Oleana. I can’t believe it’s been seven years since I moved to Boston and this was the first time I’ve been there – I buy greens at the Copley farmers’ market from Chris, the owner’s husband, fairly regularly, but just hadn’t gotten around to walking down to Inman to give Ana’s restaurant a try. Started off with a wonderful cold tomato soup dish with crunchy flatbreads, topped with whipped ricotta and lovage; followed by duck shawarma with a cardamom-rose yogurt sauce. Dessert was the most heavenly baked Alaska with coconut ice cream inside and a passionfruit-caramel glaze; really, the desserts alone would have made this a destination. As it is, I’m trying to plot my way back there before the menus change – and then again after!; like Craigie Street, they’re very much focused on local, seasonal food, and the quality shows.
Then we came home and watched the Sox game and the teamwork and the Pedroia* dive and the zeroes marching steadily across the board and the NESN announcers carefully dancing around the baseball N-word as the tension built and the gawky kid on the mound threw 115 unhit pitches to my captain, our captain, calling the game from his veteran’s crouch.
* I keep calling Dustin Pedroia Dustin Toroia. Yes, I know.
*
We continued to eat well; Sunday night, after another intense day of mainlining Final Fantasy 7, Bitty and Arthur invited us over for tostadas. Monday, we played dominoes at Carberry’s with Cathy, Micha, and the Weberlings; Cathy reported a stall at the Central Square farmers’ market selling bacon, so of course we had to stop by there – ended up with a pound of bacon and a pound of steak tips and two and a half pounds of heirloom tomatoes. That would mean, yes, two tomatoes: one the size of both my fists squished together; the larger one the size of Hyoun’s hands enveloping mine. There will be a very tomato-heavy salad for dinner tonight!
Oleana. 134 Hampshire St, Cambridge. 617.661.0505. Carberry’s. 74 Prospect St, Cambridge. 617.576.3530.