I haven't *always* been a vegetarian

I know I can't waste any more of Saturday morning, so my intent here is to dash off a quick entry summarizing my thoughts for the last two days.

The Front Royal house did not close on Friday. Yeah, I bet you're not surprised. I was, because the reason took me by complete surprise -- it failed the water test. I'm trying not to be worried about that. It's a deal killer for *anyone*, so I presume the builder will figure it out. I suspect it's something with the lines coming from the well to the house because lots of folks in Green Hill are living off that water table quite nicely.

The good side of this is that we got to pick an astrologically auspicious moment for the closing. It's a much better time than this week's slot. I don't usually try to push things to match up with the stars, but it was done at Tino's behest. It's not like I *don't know* how to pick a good time, I do. I just...don't usually exert that much control over things. I usually just try to avoid Void of Course moons and seriously fucked up Mercury aspects. I've found that I can't avoid Mercury retrogrades in practice, so I just try and avoid nasty aspects and bad moon signs. If Mercury is retrograde and I need to buy something important right then (it lasts for about six weeks), I just try to make sure that the moon isn't in Libra, opposing my Moon. I also prefer that the moon not be conjunct Neptune since that's like a con artist *holiday* time. You can time things with the moon because it moves so darn fast.

OK, that's enough astrology for one entry.

I just finished reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Well, I'm not quite done, but I'm really close. I'm glad I read this far, because his experience of cheffing seems to be a tad different from some of the folks he admires. I did learn a lot about how restaurants and professional kitchens actually work, and it's told me a lot about why all these theme (and otherwise twee and suburban) restaurants are so fucked up. There are no runners. It's bad *enough* that there are no bus boys, but not having runners is just punishment for the waitrons. I'm sure they think they don't need them, but believe me, they do. What this also means is that Clyde's (and maybe Market Street Grill...I haven't been there) is the only real restaurant out in our corner of the county. They have the full complement of floor and kitchen help, by the looks of things.

And based on Tino and Ed's experiences of late, they can barely keep it together over there as it is. I don't even know where to start on places like Friday's and Macaroni Grill. You're lucky if you get hot food that is a)what you ordered and b)the same as last time you ordered it. The only family-owned Italian place out here that serves dinner has the most miserable salads ever and lousy spumoni (what, you can't get decent spumoni in Baltimore? I find that impossible to beleive). This means that I don't care how good the pasta is. Il Cigno (right across the street) has some fabulous homemade pasta, but the atmosphere is totally bizarre in a bad 80's way. I suppose we should have gone back during the nice weather and eaten outside. That would have fixed the no smoking problem for Tino and the atmosphere for both of us. Mental note to self: do that.

I also have refound my respect for food. Unfortunatly, there is a lot of French cooking that I'd never eat anyway (even when I ate meat)[1], but the care taken in preparation and display might make a difference here at home. I'll visit Fresh Fields or Sutton Place and see what veggies they've got. Nobody else has produce worth spitting on, and devising menus without caring what's in season doesn't really yield good food.