Vocab is way too fun

Yelena gets credit for digging up this one. A delightful little vocab word quiz (easily played at work) that benefits the UN World Food Program. For every word you get right the participating sponsors donate 10 grains of rice. It's Freerice.com.

Ok, that doesn't sound lie a lot, but if you look at the daily totals it's gone from 830 grains on Oct. 7 to 56,893,100 grains on Oct. 30. This is growing exponentially so spread the word - boost some vocab and feed some people.

One discovery I've already made: Pert means "saucy." This begs the question, is PertPlus shampoo actually titled "ExtraSaucy"?

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A very sad night

Friday night was date night at the Neuman/Buzinover residence and we took the opportunity to yet again test the waters of Spokane's burgeoning food scene. Overall, I've been pretty pleased with the restaurants and service section of the Lilac City, but I was disappointed with what we found at a newer South Hill eatery specializing in small plates.

First off, the physical location is very small and was absolutely slammed with customers. We went to dinner fairly late, but a table for two was still 20 minutes. The ensuing time was filled by an extremely pleasurable cocktail interlude. If there is one saving grace of this joint it was the expertly prepared drinks and snappy bar service. My pomegranate-gin concoction perfectly accentuated the herbal qualities of the Bombay Sapphire without mucking it up with a lot of goopy syrup. The lady's infused mango vodka was equally tasteful.

Dinner was another story. Continued ... Our waitress was flustered, constantly re-asking us what we'd ordered, and service was uneven. Food was decent at best. Whereas the drinks possessed an ethereal, light quality, the dishes were as heavy-handed as they come. Not that the flavors were poorly chosen, just overdone. I might recommend the Nytimes' minimalist-in-residence Mark Bittman to the chef.

Although we liked it, pasta with ham was overcooked and smothered by drenched in a pepper jack goop. Lemon chicken, a favorite of my companion, was left almost untouched by her. The biggest failure was a stuffed portabello mushroom that came to our table as pile of risotto with a mushroom completely buried beneath it. I actually asked the server where the stuffed mushroom was that we had ordered. The risotto stuffing - cooked long beyond the proper al dente texture and doused in cream - was absolute paste more closely resembling mashed potatoes than a grain.

The coup de grace was leaving the restaurant to see one third of the kitchen staff in the parking lot leaning on the dumpster and laying (flat on their backs) on the ground while smoking cigarettes. Now, I know that kitchen crews are a hard living sort of lot (see "Kitchen Confidential" A. Bourdain, 2000) but this sort of behavior is supposed to be conducted OUT of sight

from patrons, not flaunted.

Northern Radio Exposure

For those in the know, I'm a big public radio junkie (although I've recently eschewed Frequency Modulation for podcasts) but my tastes have generally been circling the NPR format. I'll confess to a penchant for some PRI and APM series ("The Splendid Table" or "This American Life," anyone?) and yet my preferences have always stayed decidedly American. The BBC, while informative has never really done it for me, and Wisconsin and Minnesota, though seemingly foreign, are definitively under the stars and bars.

So it was a pleasant surprise to stumble onto the CBC's "As It Happens." Yes, I inevitably run the risk of sounding like an American schmuck by saying how surprised I was by our Canadian neighbor's "All Things Considered"-esque news show. Aside from the evening runtime and radio medium it bears very little in common with its south-of-the-border cousin.

First off, it sounds like experimental college radio. The news summary at the op of the show has some psychedelic groovy tuneage. The Hosts have a *unique* delivery style. Carol Off is somewhat conventional but Barbara Budd, see left, has an inflection and wacky delivery style that would make Susan Stamberg blush (Swastika is pronounced Shwah-steek-ahhhh?). Then there's also the wacky news content ... Continued

Last week AIH featured a nice little piece on the Canadian duck-calling champion. OK, I'm on board so far. Quirk is cool right now and I'm buying the story, but then Susan Off asks the guy to play his winning routine (keep in mind I'm wearing headphones) and he goes blasting off. This is not some short routine. It's two full minutes of piercing duck shrieks interspersed with the briefest of moments filled by more pleasing and normal soft quacks. This show is begging for an SNL parody.


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